In 1931, amid a world flirting with fascism and caught in economic freefall, a 27-year-old Salvador Dalí dropped a bombshell on modern art. The Persistence of Memory — 9.5 inches tall and just over a foot wide — was unlike anything the Museum of Modern Art (or anyone else) had seen. Time, as Dalí depicted it, wasn’t rigid or rational. It sagged, it slumped, it bent over the edge of a table like it had given up trying to keep up.
Nearly a century later, The Persistence of Memory is one of the most recognizable images in art history — and one of the most obsessively collected motifs among serious asset-class art buyers. But here’s the thing most collectors (and plenty of insurers) still miss: Dalí’s clocks didn’t just melt time — they changed the way we value it.
Dalí was no stranger to branding before the term existed. His moustache was sharper than most people’s opinions. But it was The Persistence of Memory that first put him in the vault — figuratively and literally. The painting was acquired by MoMA in 1934, just three years after its debut, where it remains today. What’s more interesting for collectors is what happened after.
Dalí licensed his iconography relentlessly, spawning a vast and disjointed secondary market. Limited-edition lithographs, bronze sculptures of melting watches, even NFTs have been traded under his name — some with more authentication rigor than others.
According to a 2023 Art Basel/UBS market report, “Surrealist works outperformed other 20th-century movements in terms of auction consistency from 2020 to 2022, particularly in the $100k–$500k range.” WAX internal vault data echoes the trend: insurance requests for Dalí-related works jumped 41% year-over-year, largely driven by younger collectors who view surrealism as both visually iconic and algorithm-friendly.
Dalí and the Durability premium
If collectors used to prize stability and scarcity, the 2020s have flipped that. Now, durability is psychological as much as physical — and few works offer a better mental mooring than The Persistence of Memory. It reminds us that control is an illusion. That the systems we think are fixed — clocks, markets, careers — can bend without notice.
That’s why Dalí’s resonance continues across asset classes. One WAX client, whose vault includes rare F.P. Journe complications and three original Dalí drypoints, said it best:
“There’s a strange comfort in collecting Dalí right now. It’s a reminder that chaos has a form, and sometimes, that form has value.”
In insurance terms, this matters. WAX underwriters have observed that portfolios with surrealist assets tend to demonstrate what we’ve dubbed a counter-correlation effect: when macro indicators wobble, these portfolios often see upticks in appraisal interest, policy renewals, and long-term holding behaviors. Translation? Dalí may not tell time — but he can help tell you where the market mood is headed.
Dalí isn’t just art. He’s strategy.
