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.
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New York Times Book Review
New York Times Book Review
New York Times Book Review
What is the value of a muse? That’s the central question of Michèle Gerber Klein’s biography of Gala Dalí, “Surreal.” Dalí was known as “the Mother of Surrealism,” but as with so many influential women, her role was deliberately unseen.
Gerber Klein, who previously wrote a vivid biography of the designer Charles James, relishes illustrating the power dynamics at play in burgeoning art scenes. She concludes that Gala Dalí was more than a muse and more than a partner — that what she did was unquantifiable.
Town & Country
New York Times Book Review
New York Times Book Review
There was never just one genius in the Dalí household. This revealing biography of the incredibly influential but often overlooked Gala Dalí dives into the life of the woman who was known as the Mother of Surrealism, and explores how her taste in culture, art, and fashion, paired with her sharp mind for business, helped influence generations of artists and their admirers, and created a roadmap for creative collaboration that was decades ahead of its time.
Publishers Weekly
New York Times Book Review
Publishers Weekly
Klein paints a textured, comprehensive portrait of the “mother of Surrealism,” depicting her subject as an intuitive, dynamic force who harnessed her good taste and keen eye to “spot promise and coax it into bloom.” The author also provides an intriguing look into the growth of the Surrealist movement and the unseen power dynamics that underlie how art gets made and who gets credit. Enriched by a novelist’s flair for detail, it’s a worthy tribute to an enigmatic figure in art history.
Less Than Half
Less Than Half
Publishers Weekly
I just finished reading a biography of Gala Dalí, the woman who was not only Salvador Dalí’s wife for almost 50 years, but his agent, marketer, manager, collaborator, and muse. She was behind the enormous commercial success he achieved, from collaborations with Schiaparelli, to placement in major personal collections, to prominent features in magazines and in headlines of major newspapers, which seemingly chronicled the couple’s every move.
Bloomberg
Less Than Half
Bloomberg
History hasn't been kind to Salvador Dalí's imperious wife and fixer, Gala. But her biography is remarkable: She grew up in czarist Russia and, once she moved to France, took multiple surrealist celebrities (Paul Éluard, Max Ernst) as romantic partners before marrying Dalí and ruling his lucrative artistic empire. This lively, sympathetic book paints her as both a creature of her time and a forerunner of a more entrepreneurial art world.