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Surreal: The Extraordinary Life of Gala Dalí―A Riveting Biography of the Mother of Surrealism and Her Impact on Art History
by
34/99
Critics
30/99
Readers
n/a
Scholars
15/99
Rating
52/99
Volume
33/99
Rating
28/99
Volume
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About This 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 tenderness, courage, and agency. Using previously undiscovered material, Surreal tells the riveting story of Gala Dalí,(1894-1982) a who broke away from the 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 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 to pull readers toward 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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Reviews
"Klein portrays Gala with exceptional fluidity, detailing the nuances of emotions, relationships, and artistic breakthroughs in a captivating, luminary-filled, grandly clarifying appreciation of an essential yet long-cloaked figure in twentieth-century art."
"While Gala Dalí comes off as fascinating and enigmatic, Gerber Klein makes it clear that her subject was willfully unknowable."
"Klein ably sifts the performative from the genuine."
"What's missing from this book, apart from illustrations of Dalí's art, is penetration of Gala's character beneath the surface glamor of her life among the Western world's privileged upper class."
"A thorough account of Gala Dalí's dramatic life and importance to surrealism, but short on emotional drive."
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