Answer: He sketched on the back of his checks, knowing the owners would never cash them
Ah, Salvador Dalí. The man with the moustache so sharply waxed it could slice through logic itself. Now, Dalí wasn’t just a painter of melting clocks and spindly-legged elephants — he was a walking, talking performance piece. A master of spectacle. A showman who understood, long before Warhol and Banksy, that the artist himself could be the art.
So it should come as no surprise that Dalí — ever the surrealist trickster — discovered a clever way to turn his fame into currency. Literally.
The story goes like this: Dalí, notorious for dining at fine restaurants and enjoying life’s luxuries, was not so keen on paying the bill. But rather than skip out or haggle over the tab, he did something only Dalí would have thought of: he’d pay with a cheque — and then draw a little sketch on the back.
A lobster. A melting clock. A distorted, wide-eyed face — something unmistakably Dalí.
Now here’s the brilliant part: he knew the restaurant owner wouldn’t cash it.
Why? Because the cheque, thanks to his doodle, had just become more valuable as a work of art than the money it represented. Cash it, and you get a few francs. Keep it, frame it, and you’ve got an original Dalí. Priceless. Or at least worth far more than a bottle of Rioja and a plate of paella.
This wasn’t just a charming con. It was a knowing, winking commentary on the art world itself — on fame, value, and the very idea of authenticity. Dalí understood that art isn’t just what’s in a gallery or on canvas. It’s also a gesture, a story, a provocation.
He turned dinner into theater. Debt into legacy.
And with one little drawing on the back of a cheque, he showed us what Surrealism was really all about: bending the rules of reality until they worked in your favour — and you got dessert for free.
