Remembering Salvador Dalí

The Mae West Lips Sofa designed by Dalí in 1937 on display at the Surrealism and Design Exhibition at the museum Boymans in Rotterdam in 2007 Photograph: Robert Vos/EPA

Dalí with Federico García Lorca. This photograph was taken in 1927 when the two were studying together in Madrid Photograph: EFE/Corbis

A still from Dalí's first film with Luis Buñuel, Un Chien Andalou. The 1929 silent short emerged from a conversation the two artists had about their dreams: Buñuel had seen a cloud slicing the moon in two "like a razor blade slicing through an eye"; Dalí's dream had featured a hand crawling with ants Photograph: Ronald Grant Archive

Dalí's 1928 painting Female Bathers (Baigneuses), on display in the Hayward Gallery in 2006 Photograph: Ben Stansall/AFP/Getty Images

A young Dalí and Paul Éluard look on as André Breton (far left), the founder of surrealism and author of the Surrealist Manifesto, debates with René Crevel (second from right), described by Dali as "the only serious communist among surrealists" Photograph: Stefano Bianchetti/Corbis

A collection of Dalí's watercolours on display in Santiago, Chile, in 2005 Photograph: Santiago LLanquin/AP

Dalí shows off his trademark moustache Photograph: Hulton Archive/Getty Images

The sculpture Madonna of Port Lligat shares its name with three paintings by Dalí Photograph: Rafael Diaz/EPA

Lobster Telephone, otherwise known as Aphrodisiac Telephone, was created by Dalí and Edward James in 1936. Four copies exist, along with six all-white versions Photograph: Chris Young/AFP/Getty Images

Dalí's 1955 portrait of Laurence Olivier in the role of Richard III showed the actor in profile and head-on, capturing the duality at the heart of Shakespeare's villainous monarch Photograph: PA

Conservator Polly Smith works on Salvador Dalí's 1951 painting Christ of St John of the Cross, based on a 16th-century sketch by a Spainsh Friar. The work, voted Scotland's favourite painting in 2006, hangs in Glasgow's Kelvingrove Art Gallery Photograph: Murdo Macleod/Guardian

A Lego model of Salvador Dalí and his Lobster Phone by The Little Artists Photograph: Yui Mok/PA

Dalí in Paris in 1980. He died in 1989, seven years after his wife and muse, Gala. He is buried in the crypt of the Teatre Museu Dali in his home town of Figueres Photograph: Laszlo Veres/Corbis