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1 of 10Artist Salvador Dali and his ocelot, Babou.World Telegram & Sun photo by Roger Higgins; image courtesy of the Library of Congress -
2 of 10Artist Georgia O'Keeffe and her cat, 1935.Photograph by John Candelario. Courtesy Palace of the Governors Photo Archives (NMHM/DCA), 165660 -
3 of 10Photographer Edward Weston with two of his cats ,1960.Berko—The LIFE Images Collection/Getty Images -
4 of 10Artist Claude Cahun her cat., 1927.Photo courtesy of the Jersey Heritage Museum -
5 of 10Composer John Cage and his cat.Courtesy of the John Cage Trust -
6 of 10Photographer Margaret Bourke-White and her cat, 1940.Alfred Eisenstaedt—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images -
7 of 10Artist Henri Matisse and one of his cats.© Robert Capa © International Center of Photography/Magnum Photos -
8 of 10Artist Grandma Moses (born Anna Mary Robertson) and her cat, 1947.W. Eugene Smith—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images -
9 of 10Artist Arthur Rackham and his cats.Image courtesy of the Clarke Historical Library, Central Michigan University -
10 of 10Photographer Florence Henri and her cat.Courtesy Archive Florence Henri/Martini & Ronchetti, Genoa
The artist Salvador Dalí, who was on born on this day, May 11, in 1904, didn’t just create surrealist art—in some ways, his life was plenty surreal too. Take, for example, Babou.
Instead of a normal domestic cat, Dalí kept the Colombian ocelot as his furry companion. Not that he would always admit it: as related in the new book Artists and Their Cats, by Alison Nastasi (Chronicle Books), Dalí once brought Babou out to dinner and then had to convince a frightened woman that the animal’s markings were painted on and that Babou was just your run-of-the-mill tame house cat. Ceci, as Dalí’s contemporary René Magritte might have said, n’est pas un ocelot.
In honor of what would have been Dalí’s birthday, here he is with his feline friend — along with nine other artists and their meowing muses.
All images are from Artists and Their Cats by Alison Nastasi.
Read TIME’s 1981 cover story about the latest feline fad: Crazy Over Cats
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