
- 320 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
About this book
"Michele Gerber Klein—at long last—gives Gala Dalí the close-up she deserves. When Gala met Salvador, they met their destinies. Surreal takes us backstage at the endless performance piece that was the couple’s life’s work and life’s play—a salient ingredient—and reshuffles art history along the way. Pour a stiff Pernod or Absinthe, kick back, and enjoy this delightfully sparking read."—Brad Gooch, author of Radiant: The Life and Line of Keith Haring
"Original, engaging, and fiercely intelligent, Gala Dalí has at last inspired a biography that shares her own best qualities. In this brilliant book, Klein illuminates the crucial importance that Gala held not only for her famous husbands and lovers, but for avant-garde art as a whole."—Caroline Weber, author of Proust’s Duchess and Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution
Surreal, the long-awaited, definitive biography of Gala Dalí, unmasks this famous yet little-known queen of the twentieth-century art world, who graced the canvases, inspired the poetry, and influenced the careers of her illustrious lovers and husbands with tenderness, courage, and agency.
Using previously undiscovered material, Surreal tells the riveting story of Gala Dalí, (1894-1982) who broke away from her cultured but penurious background in pre-Revolutionary Russia to live in Paris with both France’s most famous poet Paul Éluard and Max Ernst. By the time she met the budding artist Salvador Dalí in 1929, Gala was known as the Mother of Surrealism. She rapidly became his mentor and protector, marrying him in 1934 and subsequently engineering their vast fortune. At a time when artists were celebrities, Gala acted as the ambassador of the Surrealist movement, spreading its popularity across the globe. She was the survivor of two world wars, the Russian revolution and the Spanish Civil War, and lived between France, Spain and the U.S. Gala was a heroine whose originality captivated people wherever she went, and her life story has everything: size; glamour; drama; true love, twisted love; ambition; money; art; defiance; daring and sweeping social unrest. In this vivid, detailed rendering, Michèle Gerber Klein has brought Gala out of the shadows to reveal a charismatic figure who played a pivotal role in the art world yet has never received the full recognition she deserves.
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Information
Table of contents
- Cover
- Title Page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Prologue: Princess of the Forest
- Chapter 1: Fairy Tales and Secrets
- Chapter 2: Paul
- Chapter 3: War Everywhere
- Chapter 4: A Baby for Peacetime and a New Benefactor
- Chapter 5: LittĂŠrature
- Chapter 6: Max
- Chapter 7: The Dollâs House
- Chapter 8: Escape from âThe Dollâs Houseâ
- Chapter 9: Entrâacte
- Chapter 10: Salvador
- Chapter 11: Gala and Salvador
- Chapter 12: Starting Over
- Chapter 13: Paris When It Sizzles
- Chapter 14: America
- Chapter 15: Loss and Fame
- Chapter 16: Everyday Marvels
- Chapter 17: End of the Era
- Chapter 18: Exile
- Chapter 19: Metamorphosis
- Chapter 20: Expressions of Talent
- Chapter 21: Home
- Chapter 22: A Madonna in Portlligat
- Chapter 23: Turning a Page
- Chapter 24: New Frontiers
- Chapter 25: New Love
- Chapter 26: Peter Mooreâs Scandal
- Chapter 27: Amanda Becomes a Rock Star, Gala Is Ishtar
- Chapter 28: A Castle in Spain
- Chapter 29: Darkness and Light
- Chapter 30: Jacobâs Ladder
- Chapter 31: A Time to Reap
- Chapter 32: A Time to Rest
- Epilogue: The Last Fairy Tale
- Acknowledgments
- Bibliography
- Notes
- Index
- Photo Section
- About the Author
- Also by Michèle Gerber Klein
- Copyright
- About the Publisher