Which art movement is Salvador Dali associated with?

Salvador Dalí is associated with Surrealism, the 20th-century art movement known for dreamlike imagery, unexpected juxtapositions, and explorations of the unconscious mind.

Dalí became closely connected with the movement after joining the Surrealist circle in Paris in 1929. Influenced by Sigmund Freud’s ideas, he developed his “paranoiac-critical method,” deliberately encouraging hallucinatory associations that he then rendered with extraordinarily precise, realistic technique. This combination of bizarre imagery and academic draftsmanship became his signature.

His best-known painting, The Persistence of Memory (1931), features soft melting watches in a barren landscape and is one of the world’s most recognizable Surrealist images. Dalí also worked in sculpture, film, photography, writing, and design, collaborating with figures such as Luis Buñuel and Alfred Hitchcock.

A common mix-up is assuming Surrealism was simply a style of painting. It was a broader international movement founded in Paris, encompassing literature, film, photography, and visual art. Dalí’s relationship with its leaders later became contentious, and he was expelled from the official group in 1934, but Surrealism remains the movement most decisively associated with his legacy.