Gala was born an raised in Russia but once she became unwell with suspected tuberculosis as teenager, she was sent to a sanitarium in Switzerland. Gala had a various love affairs surrealists. Among them: with Max Ernst, who also painted her as well as with some other prominent Surrealists such as with the French writer André Breton and with the Spanish film director Luis Buñuel. In 1929, she met Salvador Dalí in Spain, fell deeply in love with him and left her husband, Éluard, and their daughter to move in with Dalí in his fisherman’s house.
It was a love at first sight. In his Secret Life, Dalí wrote: “She was destined to be my Gradiva, the one who moves forward, my victory, my wife”.
She immediately becomes his muse. Gala is a frequent model in Dalí’s work, often in religious roles such as the Blessed Virgin Mary in the painting The Madonna of Port Lligat.
In 1969, Salvador Dalí, gave a castle to his Russian-born wife, Gala, as a present. She welcomed his generosity but also set the rule that her husband could visit the castle only if he had received a written invitation. Showing the couple’s strong bond, Dalí also started signing some paintings “Gala Salvador Dalí”.
Gala liked to read Tarot cards was also using tarot cards to influence Dalí’s career decisions. The American art collector Peggy Guggenheim, in her memoirs, described Gala as “handsome” but “too artificial to be sympathetic.”
When motor disorder left Dali unable to hold a brush at the age of 76 years, he became less tolerant of Gala’s continued affairs. One day, he apparently broke two of her ribs, an din return Gala gave him large doses of Valium and other sedatives, which made him lethargic.
Her life and work is currently on display at the exhibition, “Gala Salvador Dalí. A Room of One’s Own in Púbol,” and runs through Oct. 14 at the National Art Museum of Catalonia, in Barcelona.
