Salvador Dalí met Sigmund Freud in London to discuss surrealism

Salvador Dalí met Sigmund Freud at the latter's home in London in July 1938.

The meeting occurred when Dalí was 34 years old and Freud was 82. Dalí, who viewed himself as a devoted follower of Freud, had spent years studying Freud's theories on the unconscious and sexuality to inform his artistic work. Dalí arrived with his painting The Metamorphosis of Narcissus and an article he wrote on paranoia to earn the respect of the psychoanalyst.

While Dalí sought validation for his art, the interaction was tense. Freud reportedly told Dalí that while he looks for the unconscious in classic paintings, he looks for the conscious in Dalí's work. Dalí later described Freud's brain in a sketch as a spiral that could be extracted with a needle. Despite these tensions, the encounter changed Freud's view of the art movement.

Freud previously viewed Surrealists as cranks, but he wrote to a mutual friend that Dalí's technical mastery and fanatical eyes made him reconsider his opinion. This meeting followed a history of friction between Freud and other Surrealists, including André Breton, who had previously attacked Freud in a public manifesto.