SURREAL: THE EXTRAORDINARY LIFE OF GALA DALÍ
Michèle’s second book, 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 courage, agency and tenderness.
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 Dali 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 was an 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 reveals Gala as a charismatic figure who played a pivotal role in cultural history but has not received the recognition she deserves.
order SURREAL: THE EXTRAORDINARY LIFE OF GALA DALÍ
CHARLES JAMES: PORTRAIT OF AN UNREASONABLE MAN: FAME, FASHION, ART
Inspired by the discovery of long-overlooked interviews conducted just before his death, this is the first biography of the visionary fashion designer Charles James.
Christian Dior described him as the inspiration for the “New Look.” Salvador Dalí called his work “soft sculpture,” and Virginia Woolf exclaimed, “He is a genius.”
Michèle Gerber Klein's portrait of the life and times of Charles James draws on the glamour of Europe in the 1930s and the dazzle of New York City from the ’40s through the ’70s as it travels with James from his birth to privilege in England in 1906 and follows his career through his complex and turbulent relationships with exceptional women such as Elsa Schiaparelli and Eleanor Lambert, ending with his penurious death in New York’s fabled Chelsea Hotel.
As engrossing as a novel, as dramatic as grand opera, James’s story provokes, rivets, and inspires.
About Michèle Gerber Klein
Michèle Gerber Klein is an author and philanthropist.
Her definitive biography: Charles James Portrait of an Unreasonable Man, published by Rizzoli ex Libris in 2018 was widely well-received and The Financial Times who found the biography “uproarious” named it a BEST BOOK of the year. Her newest work Surreal, published by Harper Collins in 2025, is the riveting life story of Gala, Salvador Dalí’s wife, partner, and muse. A charismatic, uninhibited; very human woman she was a force majeure in pre-war Paris’ legendary Surrealist circles where she was idolized as ‘the mother of Surrealism’. As Dalí’s great love, artistic collaborator, and the genius behind his vast fortune, Gala inflected the cultural history of the twentieth century.
Since 1997, Michèle Gerber Klein has been the Vice President of the Bertha and Isaac Liberman Foundation. In 2011, Michèle was the recipient of the Mann Foundation’s Woman of the Year award for her work in fashion and philanthropy.
Michèle Gerber Klein was born in New Mexico and raised in New York where she attended the Lycée Français de New York and graduated from The Brearley School. After Bryn Mawr College where she earned a B.A. degree in English literature, she returned to New York where she founded joan vass U.S.A., an award winning collection of popularly priced, elegant knit wear with Coty Award winning designer Joan Vass. She currently lives and works in Manhattan.
