Introduction

The encounter between Sigmund Freud and Salvador Dalí at Freud’s house in London in 1938 brought together two of the most influential figures of the 20th century. It also shone a spotlight on the relationship between psychoanalysis and surrealism.

Dalí had long venerated Freud, and his paintings made abundant and imaginative use of the sexual symbolism Freud analysed in The Interpretation of Dreams. André Breton’s Surrealist Manifesto (1924) had paid homage to Freud for his discoveries related to the unconscious and dreams. However, the aims of the surrealist poets and artists were very different from those of the psychoanalysts, concerned as they were with the liberation of the imagination rather than the cure of neuroses.

On his visit to Freud Dalí brought his painting Metamorphosis of Narcissus, which is the starting point of this exhibition.