NAVIGATION
ALL ARTISTS
Galatea
of the Spheres (Galatee aux Spheres) 1952 by Salvador
Dali, Oil on canvas 65 x 54 cm Fundacion
Gala-Salvador-Dali, Figueras, Spain. The Galatea of the Spheres is
a marvelous portrait of Dali's wife known as Gala. Gala was born Elena
Ivanovna Diakonova (7 September 1894 – 10 June 1982) in Russia,
to a family of intellectuals. As a young woman she graduated as a school-teacher
in 1915 from a University in Moscow. Dali first met Gala in 1929 while
working on the film Un Chien Andalou with Luis Bunuel, Gala was the wife
of another Surrealist Paul Eluard. Causing a rift in his family and tensions
with other Surrealists Dali seduced Gala away from Eluard. In 1934 Dali
and Gala were married in a civil ceremony in Paris and in 1958 the church
permitted a Catholic ceremony (Gala's former husband died in 1952) and
forever after she became known as Gala Éluard Dalí. Gala
managed Dali's business affairs for their entire marriage a task to which
the artist was unsuited. Dali considered Gala his world and his saviour
and signed many of his works with her name. This amazing portrait is one
of the many works in which Dali paints his feelings for Gala in a style
that foreshadows Dali's 1958 Nuclear Mysticism manifesto "Anti-Matter".
Commenting on this newfound belief in science, DNA, and nuclear physics
the artist had this to say, "In the Surrealist period I wanted to
create the iconography of the interior world and the world of the marvelous,
of my father Freud. Today the exterior world and that of physics, has
transcended the one of psychology. My father today is Dr. Heisenberg.
This painting today sits on an easel in the Teatro Museo Dali, Figueras,
Spain, in the Palace of the Wind Gallery. The following quote sums this
particular style of Dali's, "The surrealists saw in Dali
the promise of a breakthrough of the surrealist dilemma. Many of the surrealists
had broken away from the movement, feeling that direct political action
had to come before any mental revolutions. Dali put forth his "Paranoic-Critical
method" as an alternative to having to politically conquer the world.
He felt that his own vision could be imposed on and color the world to
his liking so that it became unnecessary to change it objectively."
from the New York Times obituary, January 24, 1989 issue. To find out
more about Dali visit Fundacio
Gala-Salvador Dali a wonderful website run by the estate of Salvador
Dali about the museum and the artists final home in Dali's hometown of
Figueras in Spain. Clicking on the image above will route you offsite
to a print and poster seller for that specific item only.