The bureaucrat is a scarce print from an edition of 130. Andre Francois Petit, Paris was the publisher.
Salvador Dalí and other members of the Surrealist movement followed the teachings of Sigmund Freud (1856 – 1939). Freud developed a methodology for examining human behaviour called psychoanalysis. Freud and the Surrealists believed that tapping into the subconscious mind and dreams through this methodology revealed buried motivations behind behaviour, mostly formed during childhood. For Dalí and Freud, the pictogram of a drawer or drawers symbolised the hidden motivations. In The bureaucrat, Dalí shows the draw ajar, indicating that the concealed thoughts are known and should not be feared.