The Persistence of Memory(La persistencia de la memoria) (1931) is a trifecta of superlatives: Surrealism's most famous painting, created by its most famous artist, featuring its most famous motif.

At 88, historian David Levering Lewis, a biographer of W.E.B. DuBois, has filled in gaps in his knowledge of his own family line, and he takes readers along on the journey.

Dali first visited New York in 1934, a year after his first, wildly successful one-man Manhattan show at the Julien Levy Gallery. Already famous for iconographic works such as “The Persistence of ...