Salvador Dalí’s Memories of Surrealism suite was published by Transworld Art. The total edition is 500, including sets in English and in French.
Each of the prints is a photo-lithograph (photolith) of an original mixed media artwork created using gouache and collage on paper.
Salvador Dalí created the Memories of Surrealism suite in 1971 in express reflections based upon his career to date.
Pierre Restany, a French art critic, interviewed Salvador Dalí about each of the Memories of Surrealism prints. The text appears out of order on printed introductory pages to accompany the photo-lithographs.
About Surrealistic Crutches, Restany recounts his interview with Dalí as follows. “This surrealistic object originates in the Dalinian motto: when you pretend to leave in the memory of the aristocratic society, dear to our hearts, an almost unperishable recollection, the best advice you can get is this one: when you are still very, very young, preferably in your teens, kick, as strongly as you can the right leg of the person you love, that is to say of the aristocrat who can help you in life. This aristocrat will say “Ouch!” and will raise his right leg and therefore stand in the precarious position of a stork, since storks stand on one leg. Just at that time Salvador Dali will turn up hypocritically, according to the manners of the Company of Jesus and the theories of St. Ignatius of Loyola, carrying a crutch so that the aristocrat will not fall. So, first a strong kick in the aristocratic leg, then as soon as the aristocrat has become one-legged, Dali rushes in, double faced as ever, bringing the famous crutch in its sheath. (This text can be repeated as many times as you wish and as slowly as possible so that the aristocrat, whilst remaining slightly grateful for not having been thrown to the ground, will remember for the rest of his life having been kicked by Salvador Dali as a young man.)”