One of the most famous of all twentieth-century sculptures, Salvador Dalí's Lobster Telephone (1938) has been acquired by the National Galleries of Scotland, and is set to go on display this week at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art.<br /> <br /> This iconic sculpture is one of the most instantly recognisable masterpieces of Surrealism, the art movement that emerged in Paris in the 1920s, which explored the world of dreams and the subconscious mind. It consists of an ordinary, working telephone, upon which rests a plaster lobster, specially made to fit directly over the receiver.<br /> <br /> Lobster Telephone was acquired for the sum of £853,000, supported by the Henry and Sula Walton Fund (£753,000), and Art Fund (£100,000). Henry Walton was a Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Edinburgh and Sula Walton (née Wolff) was an internationally renowned child psychiatrist. They were passionate devotees of the arts and left their art collection to the National Galleries of Scotland. They also established an independent, charitable fund, designed to help the Galleries acquire major works of modern art.
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