London exhibition to examine surrealism’s influence on design

Dalí’s partnership with British poet and art patron Edward James will be explored; it led to the creation of the Mae West Lips sofa, exhibited here in the Netherlands in 2007. Photograph: Robert Vos/EPA

Surrealism often brings to mind the melted clocks of Salvador Dalí or René Magritte’s image of a pipe, placed aptly above the words “this is not a pipe”.

However, despite the success of displays at top galleries in New York and London, the movement’s heydays were between the 1920s and the 1960s.