Walter Quirt (1902-1968) was an American painter and illustrator known for being one of the first Americans to experiment with surrealism in the early 1930s. Quirt was represented in New York between 1936 and 1959, by the galleries including Julien Levy and Durlocher Brothers. When Alfred H. Barr, Director of the Museum of Modern Art, opened MoMA’s first exhibition of Surrealism, “FANTASTIC ART, DADA, AND SURREALISM'' in 1937, the Museum chose Walter Quirt and Salvador Dali to be the featured speakers representing Surrealism to the public and art critics.
Quirt's works are in the collections of the de Young Museum, San Francisco; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Smithsonian Museum of American Art, Washington, D.C., the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, among others.