Salvador Dali

Dali claimed to be “totally impotent,” but his sex drive is quite evident and often an aspect to his paintings. He also claimed to be a virgin when he met Gala. Whether or not it is true, is hard to say. Salvador loved to make up stories; another trait of this querky character.

The Great Masturbator, 1929

The Lugubrious Game, 1929
Vertigo, 1930

The Old Age of William Tell, 1931

Atmospheric Skull Sodomizing a Grand Piano, 1934

Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee Around a Pomegranate. One Second Before Awakening, 1944

Young Virgin Auto-Sodomized by the Horns of Her Own Chastity, 1954

For Dali, pianos and cups, not to mention several more obvious objects stood for females. Lions and anything that looks remotely phallic, is a sign of man and his unending lust. Everything means something when it comes to Dali.

Portrait of Paul Eluard, 1929

When Dali stole Gala’s heart, he was stealing it from this man - Paul Eluard, a French poet. Paul ran around with the Surrealists, particularly Andre Breton, for some time but could never commit to a political stance.

Dali, Gala and Paul met at the opening of “Un chien andalou” in Paris in 1929. Dali invited them to spend summer at his summer home and the couple happily accepted. Unfortunately for Paul, this trip would mark the end of his 12 year marriage with his wife.

Eluard disappeared mysteriously for some time after separating from his wife. Rumours of his death were widely circulated and finally accepted as true. After seven months he appeared and explained that he had been on a journey from Marseilles to Tahiti, Indonesia and Ceylon. The journey was later connected with the loss of his wife Gala. They were legally divorced in 1932.

The Persistance of Memory, 1931.

The painting was first exhibited in Paris at the Galerie Pierre Colle in 1931, where it was purchased by the New York gallerist Julien Levy for $250. It is possibly his most famous painting and the first of Dali’s works to have the “soft” or “melting” watches. The head, in the center of the painting, is generally considered to be a self-portrait.

Gala 1894-1982

Not much is known about the person behind the Dali’s muse and lover, whose real name was Elena Ivanova Diakonova. She was originally from Moscow and had a flair for teaching. Gala, as she liked to be called, had an eye for artistic and creative genius and was close friends with many artists and intellectuals.

At sixteen, she was placed in a hospital for tuberculosis. This is where she met Paul Eluard. 2 years later, they were both discharged from the hospital. They were married in 1917 and had one daughter.

It was in 1929 that Gala and Dali met. As a poet, Eluard had ties to the Surrealist movement; he and Gala had also attended some of their meetings. They came to the opening of “Un chien andalou” in Paris and became acquaintances of Salvador Dali. He invited them and several friends to spend the summer at his family’s home in Cadaques.

Gala never left Dali’s side after that summer. Eluard, open to he and his wife fulfilling their fantasies, denied that it was a cause for concern and the couple remained married, though not together, for years before they divorced.

Dali and Gala were married in a chapel wedding in 1958.

“I love Gala more than my mother, more than my father, more than Picasso and even more than money.”

The Enigma of William Tell, 1933

Dali explains this painting in a quote from “L’enigme de Salvador Dali,” 1974.

“William Tell is my father and the little child in his arms is myself; instead of an apple I have a raw cutlet on my head. He is planning to eat me. A tiny nut by his foot contains a tiny child, the image of my wife Gala. She is under constant threat from this foot. Because if the foot moves only very slightly, it can crush the nut. ”

Dali deliberately gave William Tell the features of Lenin, purely to anger the Surrealists, which it did. They even tried to vandalize the painting. Andre Breton, the “chief” Surrealist, was outraged and called it a “counter-revolutionary act” and treason against the Bolshevik leader.

This also painting shows Dali settling accounts with his father, who had disowned him because he had been living with a married woman (Gala, Paul Eluard’s soon-to-be ex-wife).