A BIOGRAPHICAL STORY

Gala — the Eccentric Muse of Two Famous Men of Art

The story of an extraordinary woman

Gala Dalí for Vogue by Horst P. Horst, 1941, via Pixfan

“Gala Dalí, born Elena Dmitrievna Dyakonova (in Russian: Елѐна Дмѝтриевна Дья̀конова), was first the wife of French poet Paul Éluard, and later the wife of artist Salvador Dalí, their muse and inspiration.”

Wikipedia

She was born in Kazan, Russia, on 7th September 1894.

From an early age, young Elena stood out from other girls. She knew she was born for an extraordinary life.

In the last years of high school, she often suffered from a cold and she coughed badly for a long. Her parents got scared that she might have tuberculosis, so they sent her for treatment at an expensive sanatorium in Switzerland.

There, for the first time, she named herself Gala. This name had nothing to do with Russia and her origin. It means —celebration or festival.

There, she also met her first husband — the French poet Paul Éluard.

His father, a wealthy real estate merchant, sent his son there to be cured of… poetry.

When she met him, he was using his birth name — Eugene Grindel, but she decided that this name was not artistic enough for a poet, so she invented the pseudonym with which he became famous. He agreed with her. As he mentioned later — it was impossible to argue with Gala!

Éluard had not been cured of poetry — on the contrary!

He fell madly in love with that extraordinary, clever, and fascinating Russian girl. The passion and high culture of Gala impressed the young Éluard very much. This love was the first impulse of the poet’s love poetry. This impulse continued in his further work.

Galа wore provocative short skirts and went without socks, with bare feet, which was atypical for that time, further melting the young dreamer and poet. However, the rules in the sanatorium were stringent, so the two could only indulge in their fantasies. Paul wrote erotic poems and gifted them to his young and passionate muse.

Gala left the sanatorium because her parents could not afford it and she went back to Russia. The correspondence with Paul continued.

There are several surviving letters of Gala to Paul, which are filled with a passion uncharacteristic of such a young girl as she was then.

In 1916 she lied to her parents that she would go to France to study at the Sorbonne, but left to marry Éluard. The two married in 1917, and their daughter, Cecile, was born the following year. However, Gala hated her role as a mother and ignored and neglected her child throughout her life. The child was raised by her grandparents.

Gala wanted to be forever young and associated motherhood with aging.

After the first pregnancy followed another, but Gala insisted on having a criminal abortion, which ended with her not being able to have any more children. For her, it was “great luck” as she declared.

Gala manipulated all the men in her life so well that they fulfilled her every wish.

In Paris, it was a time of art and sexual pleasures, sexual pleasures and art. Gala — this eccentric lady — felt great there. The most beautiful and talented men of that time visited Eluard’s home. Gala was only interested in genius artists. She proclaimed free love and often had extramarital affairs. For her, it was entertainment, and Paul loved her so devotedly that he didn’t want to go against her wishes for fear of losing her. Often the two found themselves in a scandalous triangle, but Paul knew about each of Gala’s affairs.

Even this wasn’t enough to satisfy her eccentric nature. She was dreaming of a unique talent. A genius. She wanted to connect her life with him.

At a moment when Gala felt unhappy, she met Salvador Dalí, who was ten years younger than her, beautiful, and brilliant.

Dali had a difficult youth and had many fears, and weird fantasies, he was also still a virgin and thought he was impotent. But it was a time when Freud became famous, and being crazy was artistic. Dali was riding the wave of the times in which he lived. He intrigued Gala, who was always thirsty for adventures.

She wasn’t beautiful as a woman, she had an almost masculine structure, small breasts, and an athletic body, but that’s precisely what attracted Dali.

They met in 1929 at the Spanish resort of Cadaqués.

They met, and that same evening, he lost his virginity.

Both fell madly in love with each other, Gala left Éluard and stayed with Salvador.

And she became Dali’s manager.

Dali’s father kicked him out of his home because of his relationship with Gala. To the older man, she was some kind of ‘French-Russian prostitute,’ and he completely didn’t understand his son’s infatuation with her.

But Gala was ambitious and this could not stop her. She mobilized her connections in the artistic French society. She found a patron for Salvador — Charles de Noël, who bought many of his paintings and even provided them with a seaside residence where the couple spent the first few months of their life together.

The most famous painting of Dali, ‘The Persistence of Memory,’ was painted there.

One year later, The New York Museum of Modern Art bought the same painting — the first major recognition of Dali’s talent.

This became the most fruitful period for the artist. Gala didn’t allow him to relax and constantly urged him to paint. She admired all of his paintings and instilled confidence in him.

Dali had a lecture at an international exhibition of surrealist art dressed in a diving suit. The audience was ecstatic, and he almost suffocated because the air in his helmet ran out, but… Gala was there to rescue him from that predicament. He had always said that he couldn’t survive without her.

But… the big money was not in Europe. It was in the USA. That’s why the couple moved and settled in California. Furthermore, Dali’s scandalous image had irritated society in the old continent — something that wasn’t a problem in their new home.

Gala began to build a financial empire.

Dali received fees for his interviews. Fragments of his paintings were copied onto perfumes, ties, socks, and even toys… His works appeared not only in galleries but on the pages of glossy magazines that paid better.

As Dali became more famous, his reputation in artistic circles deteriorated. People in the art world hated Gala and were outraged by her numerous affairs with young men, regardless of her advanced age.

But for Dali, Gala was a goddess. He gave her the ancient castle of Púbol in Spain, where he would only go upon receiving a written invitation.

Part of the second floor of the castle has been turned into a small museum, containing a collection of some of Gala’s most famous and beloved dresses, sewn by Dior, Versace, and other world-renowned designers.

In 1982, Gala passed away after unsuccessful surgery. Dali commissioned a lavish tomb and buried her in Barcelona, dressed in her favorite Dior dress.

He did not attend her funeral…

After Gala’s death, Dali didn’t paint a single painting.

Gala Dalí has long been considered both a muse and a monster. Her behavior at times was certainly scandalous. Some of her actions were immoral. At the same time, many people, mainly men, idolized her. There was something truly enchanting about her to have such an impact on them.

The scandalous and the extraordinary always attract human attention. And Gala was exactly like that — a different eccentric, and even selfish woman.

This article is based on my research on Internet sites:

and the book “Gala-Dalí” by Carmen Domingo.

Thank you for reading.

Summarize

A BIOGRAPHICAL STORY

Gala — the Eccentric Muse of Two Famous Men of Art

The story of an extraordinary woman