Surrealist Sculpture

Surrealism art can also be seen in sculpture. I know in high school art class we all had to make small scale clay sculpture in a surrealist manor by combining 2 different subjects and morphing them together or making a literal creation of compound words. Just to name a few there was turtles with shells shaped like the globe, a box of fries with french berets, or ipods made out of eyes. This lesson sort of stemmed from on of the most famous pieces of surrealist sculpture art, or simply surreal art in general.

This Surrealist object was inspired by a conversation between Oppenheim and artists Pablo Picasso and Dora Maar at a Paris cafe. Admiring Oppenheim's fur-covered bracelet, Picasso remarked that one could cover anything with fur, to which she replied, "Even this cup and saucer." Soon after, when asked by André Breton, Surrealism's leader, to participate in the first Surrealist exhibition dedicated to objects, Oppenheim bought a teacup, saucer, and spoon at a department store and covered them with the fur of a Chinese gazelle. In so doing, she transformed genteel items traditionally associated with feminine decorum into sensuous, sexually punning tableware.

Meret Oppenheim. Object. 1936. Fur-covered cup, saucer, and spoon, cup 4 3/8" (10.9 cm) in diameter; saucer 9 3/8" (23.7 cm) in diameter; spoon 8" (20.2 cm) long, overall height 2 7/8" (7.3 cm).