The Awakening of the Myth: Gala Dalí

Muse, wife and collaborator, first of Paul Éluard, then of Salvador Dalí. In the story, Gala always appears in the shadows. The invisible eminence behind the genius. Often the only woman in a circle of men. This is reflected by Max Ernst in the 1922 Au rendez-vous des amis, a collective portrait of the Surrealist group. She was eternally relegated to a cliché by the misogynistic discourse of a society that seemed reluctant to recognise her influence. Because she existed only on canvas and paper. In the poems of Paul Éluard, in the work of Salvador Dalí, through the camera lenses of Man Ray, Brassaï, Cecil Beaton, Horst P. Horst… An identity constructed through others. Necessity or choice? Yoke or disguise?

Preparatory photograph for the work Galarina, c. 1943.
Image rights of Gala and Salvador Dalí reserved. Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí, Figueres, 2024

The unwritten legend speaks of an untamed, elusive, enigmatic figure. A Dalinian superwoman who arouses fascination and aversion in equal parts, regardless of gender. Because she unsettled men such as André Breton or Luis Buñuel as much as she disgusted women such as Peggy Guggenheim. ‘Too artificial to be pleasant,’ said the collector and patron.

Now that 130 years have passed since her birth (in Kazan, Russia, in 1894), the time has come to talk about Gala. And we do so by way of a novel discourse stitched together through fashion. An exhibition conceived in three seasons, that includes key pieces from her personal collection, in which haute couture designs by Christian Dior and Elsa Schiaparelli rub shoulders with outfits from Givenchy or Oleg Cassini, but also with label-free garments. They remind us that her image goes far beyond the label, as a reflection of the society and culture of its time, and also of a unique personality that, above all, always remained true to itself.

Salvador Dalí and Gala, 1944
Image rights of Gala and Salvador Dalí reserved. Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí, Figueres, 2024

Gala 'avant la lettre' 

At the beginning of the twentieth century, Gala Éluard interpreted better than anyone the configuration of the modern woman, without narcissistic flourishes. Gala – whose real name was Elena Ivanovna Diakonova – was not vain. The very opposite, in fact. She understood fashion as a form of expression and self-discovery outside of conventions. Camouflage and transvestism, free of corsets (whether aesthetic or social). She was the femme dandy of avant-garde Paris. Her wild curiosity subverted trends in favour of an androgyny that, as proposed by Gabrielle Chanel, adopted certain masculine codes (and patterns) with which to define a new femininity.

In 1916 Gala had travelled across a Europe at war to join Éluard (whom she had met in 1912 at the Clavadel sanatorium, in Switzerland, during a long convalescence). In the French capital, her circle included aristocrats and intellectuals. With them she shared the heroic ideal of the freedom of the artist and the poet. And in this search for identity through the image, Gala contributed to the subversion of roles and the conscious deconstruction of female stereotypes (and of the oppressive rhetoric of motherhood). 

Gala and Salvador Dalí, c. 1933
Image rights of Gala and Salvador Dalí reserved. Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí, Figueres, 2024

Two sentences by Breton in 1922 were a call to rebel against routine: “Lâchez tout. Partez sur les routes” (“Break with everything. Go out on the road”). Should we be surprised that in 1929 Gala left Paris for a fishing village and Éluard for Dalí? Modern sophistication for a rugged landscape. That summer, after the premiere of the film Un Chien Andalou (1929) in Paris, Dalí invited the Éluards – with their daughter Cécile – to Cadaqués, where they met up with Magritte and the gallerist Camille Goemans and their respective partners, and Buñuel. Bathed in the Empordà sun, Gala chose to dress up as a muse. The multifaceted woman – with her hair carefully pinned up, with her predilection for headwear, for wide-leg slacks and exquisitely tailored skirt suits – sloughed off her former life (or outer skin) to show her bare back. In that vision Dalí found his mirror – perhaps a mirage – and Gala became a canvas. Idyll and creative delirium. Madonna, Galatea and Gradiva. Object of desire and fetish. Eternalised so many times.

Gala and Salvador Dalí at the Hotel du Portugal in Vernet-les-Bains, 1931
Image rights of Gala and Salvador Dalí reserved. Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí, Figueres, 2024

Creation and masquerade

“The outfit is essential in order to conquer. In all my life, the occasions are very rare that I have abased myself to civilian clothes. I am always dressed in the uniform of Dali,” the artist was to confess. Together they formed a whole, a project of life and work (Dalí signed many of his works with the names of both). And Gala reinvented herself every day, ready to take on as many roles as were needed: muse, performer, artist, agent… She knew enough to attract gallerists. Eminently practical and quite unabashed, she set aside the sobriety of Chanel for the eccentric excess of Elsa Schiaparelli to show off and publicise the painter’s collaboration with the Italian couturier. A union that gave rise to famous oneiric designs such as the Lobster dress (1937) or the Shoe Hat (1937–1938), which Gala wears in a photograph by André Caillet dated 1938.

Gala and Salvador Dalí at the Del Monte Lodge, California, 1947
Image rights of Gala and Salvador Dalí reserved. Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí, Figueres, 2024

No step was in vain. As noted in the article ‘Packing the Cabin Trunk’ (published in Vogue in 1903), in the era of ocean liners, boarding and disembarking were memorable moments, which called for a style code loaded with symbolism. Gala and Dalí knew how to turn the gangway of those giants of the sea into an exercise in marketing that ensured big headlines. Their first trip to New York, in November 1934, marked the beginning of the conquest of America. Every winter for 40 years, room 1610 of the St. Regis hotel was their home… and their showcase. Beyond museums, their life revolved around happenings, performances and advertising. Hitchcock and Disney. Mass culture and wealth. A strategy that Gala adapted to his media image (or public alter ego), with outfits by Arthur Falkenstein (the artistic circle’s favourite American fashion designer), Oleg Cassini (creator of Jackie Kennedy’s signature look) and Howard Greer (couturier to Hollywood’s Golden Age, who designed the very young Gloria Vanderbilt’s wedding gown).

Gala at work in the pavilion Dream of Venus, 1939
Eric Schaal © Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí, Figueres, 2024
Image rights of Gala and Salvador Dalí reserved. Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí, Figueres, 2024

Silence and nostalgia at the Castle of Púbol

In 1969, Dalí gave his muse the Castle of Púbol. The fourteenth- and fifteenth-century fortification (today open to the public as a museum) became the mythical and poetic portrait of Gala. A pet project and representation of her own singular, scenographic and intimate universe, “in which she reigns”, in the words of the painter. No one, not even Dalí, could visit her without a written invitation from Gala herself. In the last years of her life, she sculpted every corner of the castle in her image and likeness, constructing a patchwork of her identity. Her domain, mute witness to distorted memories and meted-out marvels, but also to her passion for literature, for rare beauty and exoticism. A golden thread that even today weaves fabrics and exquisite stories, like the golden cover of the special 1971 Christmas edition of Vogue Paris that Salvador Dalí dedicated to his beloved muse, wife and collaborator. Eternal invisible stitch.

Gala and Salvador Dalí during the shooting of Autoportrait mou de Salvador Dalí, 1966.
Image rights of Gala and Salvador Dalí reserved. Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí, Figueres, 2024

Credits hero image: Gala, 1935-1937
Image rights of Gala and Salvador Dalí reserved. Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí, Figueres, 2024