Lobster Telephone (1936)

During the Thirties, Dali created a number of Surreal objects that would change the nature of product design. The most famous of these is the Lobster Telephone. It was made for Dali's patron Edward James, the most important British collector of Surrealist art at the time. These sculptures were designed to provoke a reaction by combining unexpected and bizarre things, while being sexually provocative.

Always witty and playful, Dali understood that objects, the things we interact with on a daily basis, could have a meaning that exceeded their function. Today we are surrounded by objects that are the legacy of Dali's vision, from phones shaped like burgers to his much-copied Mae West's Lips sofa, with versions of the latter found everywhere from hip bars to the Big Brother set.