Salvador Dalí

Salvador Dalí was the most famous showman of Surrealism. Trained in Madrid, he joined the Paris Surrealists in 1929 and developed his paranoiac-critical method, producing meticulously painted dreamscapes such as The Persistence of Memory (1931). He later worked across film, design, jewellery and theatre, and his flamboyant persona made him a global brand. For collectors the key distinction is between the scarce Surrealist oils of 1929 to 1939, which carry the top prices, and a vast output of later prints and multiples, many of uncertain authorship, that trade at modest levels. His auction record, Portrait de Paul Éluard (1929), was set at Sotheby's London in 2011, and strong 1950s works still reach several million dollars.