The Mae West Lips Sofa (1937) is a surrealist sofa by Salvador Dalí. The wood-and-satin sofa was shaped after the lips of actress Mae West, whom Dalí apparently found fascinating. It measures 86.5 x 183 x 81.5 cm.
Edward James, a rich British patron of the Surrealists in the 1930s, commissioned this piece from Dali.
Famous quotes containing the words mae west, west, lips and/or sofa:
“My advice to those who think they have to take off their clothes to be a star is, once you’re boned, what’s left to create the illusion? Let ‘em wonder. I never believed in givin’ them too much of me.”
—Mae West (1892–1980)
“We were young, we were merry, we were very very wise,
And the door stood open at our feast,
When there passed us a woman with the West in her eyes,
And a man with his back to the East.”
—Mary Elizabeth Coleridge (1861–1907)
“But boys and girls, pale from the imagined love
Of solitary beds, knew what they were,
That passion could bring character enough
And pressed at midnighht in some public place
Live lips upon a plummet-measured face.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“There is nothing so slipperily alluring as sadness; we become sad in the first place by having nothing stirring to do; we continue in it, because we have found a snug sofa at last.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)