Salvador Dali (Salvador Dali), whose full name is Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dali i Domenech, Marqués de Púbol (Spanish: Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dali i Domenech, Marqués de Púbol, 1904-1989), is generally referred to as Salvador Dalí. He is a famous Spanish Catalan painter, famous for his surrealist works. Dali is an artist with extraordinary talent and imagination. His works surprisingly mix weird dream-like images with excellent drawing techniques and painting techniques influenced by Renaissance masters. In 1982, King Juan Carlos I of Spain named him the Marquis of Púbol. Together with Picasso and Matisse, he is considered to be the three most representative painters of the 20th century.

Dali's influence in surrealist painting is the greatest and lasts the longest. Not only his paintings, but also his articles, eloquence, actions and his dress, all promote his "surrealism". In terms of exerting and using his imagination, he can be said to have surpassed their surrealist painting group. In addition to conveying irrationality, pornography, madness and a certain degree of social philosophy, some of his works sometimes reflect people's fashionable mentality. In Dali's 70-year artistic career, he has done many things that make us dumbfounded. Among those weird things and bizarre remarks, "scoring the masters" has become Dali's brand. In the history of Spanish painting, he, together with Velázquez, Goya, Miró, Picasso and other painting masters, shines on the beautiful sky of Spain and legends the history of Spanish painting. Dali's arrogant eyes are always looking at the world with melancholy. Salvador Dali likes to depict scenes in dreams, distorting or deforming ordinary objects in a strange and unreasonable way. Dali depicted these objects in great detail, almost to the point of being lifelike, and often placed them in very desolate but sunny landscapes. Among these enigmatic images, the most famous is probably "The Persistence of Memory".

The British government recently announced an export ban on a work by Salvador Dalí, the "Mae West Red Lips Sofa", hoping that a collector or museum would be willing to pay £500,000 to buy the work and keep it in the UK.

　　In the 1930s in Hollywood, the most recognized female star was undoubtedly Mae West. She was sexy and bold, and was the highest-paid female star in Hollywood in the 1930s. Artist Dali was fascinated by West's extravagant and uninhibited temperament.

　　Mae West

　　Between 1934 and 1935, purely out of personal interest and fascination, Dali painted a portrait of Mae West. In 1936, Dali was experiencing financial difficulties in London and accepted the commission of his good friend, British art patron Edward James, to design surrealist furniture for his private residence. He created a total of 4 lobster telephones and 5 Mae West red lip sofas.

Dali's lobster telephone, next to Duchamp's urinal

　　The red lips sofa became an instant hit and became a symbol of sexiness at the time. The inspiration came from his goddess Mae West. Dali named it Mae West lips sofa with her iconic red lips as the shape of the sofa. The sofa prototype is a solid wood structure, and the original sofa was covered with pink velvet fabric. Edward James thus became the world's most famous surrealist collector.

The first red lip sofa

　　In 2003, the original sofa that teased the whole world was purchased by an anonymous buyer at Sotheby's auction house for more than 6,000 pounds, and was then sent to a mysterious mansion, leaving unlimited space for people's imagination.

　　The sofa, which is subject to the export ban, was created in 1938. It was originally 1.83 meters long, but was later modified by Edward James to 2.02 meters and kept in his home. After James' death in 1984, the sofa was sold to a private collector.

Mae West Lips Sofa, Salvador Dali, 1938

　　The Red Lips Sofa is considered one of the most iconic pieces of surrealist furniture. The UK's temporary export ban will be in effect until February 16, 2018. If a collector or museum formally decides to raise funds, the ban will be extended to May 16, 2018.

　　Dali's admiration for Mae West went beyond just this sofa.

　　In 1972, Dali and designer Oscar Tusquets tried to use an entire room in the Mae West Room of the Dali Museum in Spain to create a three-dimensional painting of Mae West to express the beauty of the goddess. The golden curtains are her hair, the two paintings represent her eyes, the fireplace is her nose, and the lips are this sofa.

　　Dali's red lip legacy still shines in the art and fashion world. From Diane von Furstenberg's red lip prints and red lip logos to the trendy accessories brand Lulu Guinness, which is famous for its red lip clutches, the inspiration actually comes from Dali.

　　Dali is indeed a master of surrealism who is good at magnifying parts of the human body and painting them with bright colors to achieve a shocking effect. He is the one who spent his entire life promoting surrealism. Although he is not the founder of this style, it is because of him that surrealism has become mainstream. When people mention Dali, they think of not only his paintings, the flowing clock, and the upturned beard, but also his dress, articles, eloquence and behavior. He integrated surrealism into his life.

　　Dali's success is inseparable from his self-marketing. At the age of 30, he had already appeared on the cover of Time magazine. The magazine's reporter described Dali as "his ability to attract the public would make all advertisers jealous." He was good at putting on a performance that was attractive enough to generate huge publicity benefits. He appeared in Time magazine 6 times and even founded his own magazine Dali News. Dali was the first artist in the world to indulge in self-promotion. He was the first artist to bring vulgar jokes into the flashy but sincere immersion in the art world. He was a pioneer of later superstar artists, such as Andy Warhol, Jeff Koons, and Damien Hirst.

Dali designed his thoughts into jewelry

　　In the surrealist art revolution that emerged in Paris in the 1920s, Salvador Dali was undoubtedly the most famous, prolific and commercial artist, without a doubt.