There Would Be No Salvador Dali Without Gala Dali: Wife, Lover, Muse, Mother
Today would have been Gala Dali’s 129th birthday which is why I want to honor her often overlooked legacy in the founding of the surrealist movement and the rise of her husband, Salvador Dali. In my research for this article, I came across groundbreaking new insights into the relationship of Gala and Salvador that have never been spoken about.
I have a personal connection to Salvador and Gala’s legacies, I wrote a concept EP titled ‘Leash’, inspired by his painting ‘Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee Around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening’ which Gala is the subject of. I also synchronistially hold Gala’s name within my last name, Galazka.
To understand Salvador Dali you must understand Gala Dali.
I would go as far to say there would be no Salvador Dali without Gala Dali.
Their relationship was less husband and wife, more moon and tide, mother and son; elemental and inextricably linked by love, lust and supernatural and subconscious forces.
So… who was Gala Dali?
Gala Dali was born Elena Ivanovna Diakonova on September 7, 1894 in Russia to a family of intellectuals, she was a Virgo. When she was 11 years old her father died. At 17 years old she was diagnosed with tuberculosis and sent to a sanitorium in Switzerland where she met another 17 year old, Paul Éluard. Éluard would go on to become one of the founding members of the Parisian Surrealist and Dada movements, he was a poet. He and Gala fell in love at the sanitorium and after convincing her parents, she was allowed to go to Paris and marry him at just 19 years old. They had one daughter, Cécile, whom Gala ignored and mistreated.
Gala detested motherhood.
Serving as a muse during the founding of the Surrealist movement, she inspired not only Éluard, but other prominent figures Max Ernst, a German painter, and André Breton, writer, poet and author of ‘The Surrealist Manifesto’. Gala, Ernst and Éluard were in a ménage à trois for three years, however Éluard eventually grew to detest Gala for being a ‘destructive force to the artists she befriended.’ She was known to have a demonic temper, burning cigarettes in the arms of those she disagreed with and spit on people she did not like. She was described as ‘cruel, fierce and small’ with ‘eyes that pierced walls’ but also incredibly beautiful and enigmatic. She was known for her sexual voracity and lack of respect for others relationships.
”[Gala] had an appetizing little body, and the libido of an electric eel.” — John Richardson, art dealer for Salvador Dali in the 1970’s.
While most most considered these attributes offensive, particularly for a woman of that time, you couldn’t deny, Gala was unforgettable. With an intense and paradoxical nature it’s no wonder she made a perfect Surrealist muse.
Salvador Dali was born on May 11, 1904 in Figueres, Spain, he was a Taurus. He had an older brother also named Salvador Dali who tragcally died as a baby only 9 months before Salvador II was born. This gave our Dali quite the complex as his parents told him that he was literally the reincarnation of his dead brother. This undoubtedly contributed to his obsession with death and decay from a young age as he felt the better half of him was rotting in the ground.
Dali’s idea of pleasure was pain, recounting a story in his autobiography ‘The Secret Life of Salvador Dali’, he was only 5 years old when he had the urge to push his friend off a bridge — he did. This brought the boy to harm and Dali to heaven.
Below is a a painting titled‘Portrait of My Dead Brother’ which he describes in the following quote:
“The Vulture, according to the Egyptians and Freud, represents my mother’s portrait. The cherries represent the molecules, the dark cherries create the visage of my dead brother, the sun-lighted cherries create the image of Salvador living thus repeating the great myth of the Dioscures Castor and Pollux.”
Dali’s relationship with his mother, Felipa, was incredibly interwoven. He loved her intensely, clinging for her affection, undoubtedly due to subconscious feelings tied to his older brothers death. Meanwhile he was afraid of his father Salvador Sr. as he was known to have angry outbursts. Dali’s fear of female genitalia was most likely caused by his father showing him a book of veneral diseases at a young age.
Tragically when Dali was only 16 years old, his mother died of uterine cancer. This would prove to be the second most significant event to happen in his life, the first being his brother’s death, second his mother’s death and third the meeting with Gala, which we will get to soon.
For the rest of his life he longed for his mother, wishing to be back within her, yes within her. Dali often spoke of having intrauterine memories and his desire to crawl back into the ‘paradisic’ womb. I believe this was also spurred by his insecurity around being a ‘replacement’ for his dead brother, subconsciously wishing he was never born under such a heavy burden. But to think of it, who wouldn’t want to stay in the paradise and protection of their mother forever?
Dali’s mother dying was a wound that would never fully heal.
‘My mother’s death supervened, and this was the greatest blow I had experienced in my life. I worshipped her… I could not resign myself to the loss of a being on whom I counted to make invisible the unavoidable blemishes of my soul.’ — Salvador Dali
The year was 1929 and Gala was travelling to Cadaqués, Spain with her husband Paul Éluard and a few other surrealists (a ‘few other surrealists’ being the Rene Magritte). Upon arriving there was a bit of drama going on, the rising surrealist painter Salvador Dali was preparing for his first solo exhibition at Goemans Gallery but was having a bout of madness. One of the factors of his breakdown was his father demanding a public retraction for the exhibition, which Dali could not bring himself to do as he ‘could not leave the surrealist movement.’ Salvador was then kicked out of his fathers house.
The Belgian poet and gallery owner Camille Goeman was worried Dali would not be able to complete the paintings for the exhibition in his gallery. Then he had an idea, he had previously introduced Dali to Éluard in Paris making him a familiar face. He knew Gala had a way with artists and asked if she could try to help Salvadors bout of madness.
Gala obliged to Camille’s request and visited Salvador to see how she could help. Upon meeting, it was as if he was instantly cured. A miracle. His bout of madness subsided and he was able to complete the paintings for his exhibition. It was love at first sight. Salvador recounts in ‘The Secret Life of Salvador Dali’:
“She was destined to be my Gradiva, the one who advances, my victory, my wife.’ — Salvador Dali
‘Gradvia’ is a novel by Wilhelm Jensen which Sigmund Freud wrote an essay on titled ‘Delusion and Dream in Jensen’s Gradiva.’ The novel centers around the protagonist Norbert Hanold who comes to realize his love for his childhood friend through a long and complex process, mainly by associating her with an idealized woman in the form of the Gradiva. Freud concluded this book was a prime example of ‘something which might be called “cure by seduction” or “cure by love” as well as evidence ‘that the Oedipus complex is still active in normal adults, too’.
Gala curing Dali’s bout of madness was no doubt a ‘cure by love.’
Speaking of Freud, Dali was a devout follower of his. The foundations of the Surrealist movement were largely founded on his groundbreaking book ‘The Interpretation of Dreams’, 1899. Freud was also infamous for his theory the Oedipus Complex which is when a son has unconscious sexual desires for his mother and a rivalry with his father. Both true for Dali.
Gala left her luxury life in Paris to live with Salvador in a hut on the beach with no running water or electricity, abandoning her own daughter to be his mother, muse and lover. She was also his agent, dealer, promoter and used her one-track-mindedness to bring them fame and fortune. She would not rest until Salvador’s legacy was solidified as not only one of the greatest surreliast painters, but in the ranks of the greatest artists of all time.
Gala and Salvador married in a civil ceremony in 1934.
Dali’s father greatly dissaproved of him marrying Gala, a Russian divorcee, but he would later come to terms with it when Dali became a man of significance in Spain, much to do Gala’s credit.
Against all odds, Gala and Salvador’s lives thrived. She was a model for paintings, caretaker, art dealer and agent. She brought his paintings from gallery to gallery insisting they show his paintings. She belived in him more than anyone and did everything in her power to get his name out there. It was with her social climbing skills they were able to get to America and grow his fame there. Her intense, shrewd and unpleasant nature (mind you, these qualities are fine for a business man) did get her results. She was a hustler, gaining him worldwide recognition and patrons while also making sure their home life was comfortable and providing Dali the space to make his masterpieces.
“I love Gala more than my mother, more than my father, more than Picasso, and even more than money” — Salvador Dali
Here is where it gets wild, I went back to the time surrounding his exhibition at Goemans Gallery and found an extremely interesting detail regarding this serendipitous time in their lives. I mentioned before Dali was having a bout of madness likely caused by his fathers disapproval of the exhibition and kicking him out of his house, but there was something deeper going on.
One of the paintings Dali was working on was called ‘The Enigma of my Desire’. The subject being a surreal rock formation resembling a womb, the words ‘ma mère’, French for ‘my mother’, is repeatedly etched within the amorphous oval impressions on the rock. At the bottom left lies the ant infested meltinge face of Salvador Dali, much like the one we see in ‘The Persistence of Memory.’ Within this context, it seems this rock formation is a womb and Dali is leaving it against his will.
At the upper right of the painting attached to the giant rock is a tiny lion head, signifying Dali’s father who he feared for his bad temper. Also perhaps signifying the insignificance of sperm and his fathers influence over him. Ants are a symbol of decay in the Dali universe, which if this is his birth, it may imply he ‘died’ when he was born like his brother. The death of leaving the paradise of his mother.
I began to connect all of the dots: Dali’s mother dying, the tension with his father, his bout of madness, Gala’s father dying and her hatred for motherhood. It made too much sense, how has nobody seen this…
This painting he was working on for his first exhibit was depicting an extremely painful memory where he wished to be reunited with his mother and he couldn’t. On top of that, his mother wouldn’t be there to see his first exhibit. If art expresses subconscious feelings, Surrealism takes that to the next level.
He was triggered! No wonder the madness started stirring. Painting an in utero memory, fighting with his father and he had no mother to turn to to express his sexual desires (Oedipus complex).
Then comes Gala.
A woman who looks eerily similar to his mother Felipa. Within moments of meeting, his madness is cured and they instantly fall in love, but this isn’t just love at first sight, or even a ‘cure by love’ — it’s a trauma bond.
Something about Gala reminded him of his mother in that moment, she became the place to project his Oedipus complex. He even says it, she’s his Gradvia. When she walked into that studio, it was a miracle that happened for Dali, his mother came back to life. His mother is who he needed more than anything to feel better. How could that not be the case? Camille had tried everything to calm Dali down, bringing in others I’m sure, before the fated visit from Gala. Have you ever had a love one die and for a moment see somebody on the street who could be their doppelgänger? And for a moment you really believed it was them? That’s what happened for Salvador.
It was as if he was seeing his mother for the first time after she died. Dali’s whole being collapsed into Gala, and her into him. It was an instant imprinting. It was why he did anything she said, he longed for the discipline and ruling of a mother. It’s why when he bought her the Castle of Púbol it was his idea to write letters asking for permission to visit her. He wanted a mother!
On paper she was his wife and lover, in reality she was his mother and muse. He painted her as the Virgin Mary with the Christ Child, that’s what she was to him. He was the prodigal son who was rejected by his family, but instead of having to go back and face his father, he had his mother Gala. A new family to go back to. He was Christ, she the mother of God. He not only loved her, he revered her.
Now you may be thinking, ok so he was projecting his trauma onto her, but why was Gala also so devoted to Salvador? Well, that can be seen in the tragedy of her father dying when she was 11 years old. It is no coincidence that Gala’s daughter Cecile was 11 years old when Gala abandoned her, the same age Gala was when her father died.
Now, I’m no psychotherapist, but the uncanny timings seem a lot like acting out intergenerational trauma bonds. Even though her father dying wasn’t a purposeful abandonment, it has the psychological effect on a childs brain as if it were. By her leaving Cecile, when she was the same age Gala was, she gained some kind of control over the pain of losing her father.
By abandoning she became in control of the abandonment.
Dali’s mother dying when he was 16 years old had a similar effect. He re-gained control over this pain by projecting the archetype of the mother over Gala.
What if those Parisian Surrealists never planned a trip to Cadaqués? What if Camille Goeman never got introduced to Paul Éluard? What if he never brought Gala to help Salvador out of his madness? Would he have recovered? Would he have been able to complete the paintings? We may never know, but I have a hunch, if Gala never showed up he wouldn’t have been able to defeat that bout of madness. She was his mother come back to life, truly a miracle for Salvador. I don’t believe he would have had that first exhibition without her anointing, and the world would not know one of the greatest painters of all time.
This is why I say, there would be no Salvador Dali without Gala Dali.
“It is mostly with your blood, Gala, that I paint my pictures” — Salvador Dali
