The life of Elena Diákonova, the woman who was instrumental in Salvador Dalí becoming one of the greatest painters of the 20th century

Salvador Dalí’s autobiographical book ‘Diary of a Genius’ begins with the following words: “I dedicate this book to my genius, my victorious goddess Gala Gradiva, my Helen of Troy, my Saint Elena, my brilliant woman who looks like the surface of the sea, Galatea.” Elena Ivanovna Diakonova, whom he called Gala (in French it means ‘big party’), is considered by some to be the great woman behind the painter. Others see her as a greedy person who turned the artist’s talent into a money-making machine.

Today the awesome.club brings the story of the great love of Salvador Dalí’s life. Her name was Elena, a strong and very controversial woman.

Elena Ivanovna Diakonova, known worldwide as Gala, was born on August 18, 1894 in Kazan (at that time, part of the Russian Empire). A few years later, after the death of her father and her mother’s remarriage, she moved with her family to Moscow.

Elena was very fond of her stepfather and decided to adopt his name as a patronymic (a second name that derives from her father’s name). Like a flower that blooms, Dalí’s future muse ceased to be Elena Ivanovna and became Elena Dmitrievna. Then she went from Elena Diákonova to Elena Diákonova-Éluard; then she became known as Gala, to finally be Gala Dalí.

In Moscow, Elena began studying at a school for women, where she met and became friends with Marina Tsvetaeva, a Russian poet who became very famous a few years later. The writer described it as follows:

“In the half-empty classroom sits a thin, long-legged girl in a short dress. Her name is Elena Diakonova. A thin face, a curled blonde braid at the end. Different eyes: brown, narrow, as if they were Chinese. Dark, thick eyelashes over the eyes. A face that reflects obstinacy and a degree of shyness that turns all his actions into sudden movements.”

In 1912, at age 17, Elena had tuberculosis. Her family sent her to a Swiss sanatorium in Clavadel. There, she met the then-unknown poet Eugène Grindel. Sometime later, he would be her first husband. Elena seemed destined to become a muse and later inspire who the world would come to know as Paul Éluard, who would write great, sensual love poems. In this way, the Russian discovered a talent, perhaps the most important of her life: being a muse.

The two were married in 1917 and, a year later, their first child was born. In 1921, Elena and Paul went to Cologne, Germany, to visit artist Max Ernst. And that’s when the love triangle began. However, unlike the many stories we know, the romance was open and the 3 lived under the same roof.

It is not possible to know how long the situation would have lasted if the couple had not gone to the city of Cadaqués in 1929 to visit a young 25-year-old painter named Salvador Dalí. “Right away, I knew he was a genius”Gala would confess some time later.

Paul Éluard left Cadaqués without a wife, taking with him only a portrait of himself painted by Dalí. “I felt a duty to capture the poet’s face, since from Olympus I stole one of his muses,” the painter later said.

Since then, Gala and Dalí were inseparable and in 1932, when the divorce with Éluard was made official, they got married. From the beginning, the marriage was quite strange: while he was afraid of women and intimate relationships (some people say that Gala was the only woman who could touch him), she was sensual and passionate.

Of course, Dalí was also a passionate person, but only in his fantasies and creations. Already she indulged her desires with many young lovers and local sailors.

The works created during their life together were signed as Gala-Salvador Dalí. It was Gala who managed to make collectors and lovers of painting begin to want to establish contact with him. She was a very intelligent and practical woman. If the works didn’t sell, she forced Dalí to do more publicity and dedicate himself to designing clothes, for example, or decorating shop windows.

Despite an age difference of just 10 years, Dalí was, for Gala, more of a son than a husband. She called him ‘my son’ and loved him more than her own daughter, raised by Éluard’s grandmother. Dalí himself, whose mother had died when he was 15, accepted the role of son very well.

For many decades, Dalí painted Gala in different ways: in his works, she was immortalized both nude and in obscene poses as in an image of the Virgin Mary. Some art critics feel that Gala was not a silent model. She was a kind of co-author, always with comments about future works.

Gala contributed to Dalí’s break with the surrealists. But, at the same time, his entrepreneurial spirit made the artist recognize: “I am surrealism”.

It was precisely one of the founders of surrealism, the poet André Breton (who hated Gala with all his might), who made Gala gain a reputation as a promiscuous and money-loving woman (something that is not entirely wrong). Later, journalists dubbed her the ‘Greedy Valkyrie’ and even worse names. However, neither Gala nor Dalí bothered; to him, she was still Galatians.

What best describes the couple’s relationship are the words from a memoir by Gala’s sister Lidia:

“Gala takes care of Dalí as if he were a child: she reads to him before bed, forces him to take the necessary medicine, analyzes his nightmares and, with infinite patience, fights his distrust. Dalí throws a watch on a visitor and Gala runs to him with a tranquilizer. God forbid she doesn’t have a fit because of him.”

In 1934, the spouses went to America. Gala, always very perceptive, thought that there he could receive true recognition and become rich. And she was right.

It was in the United States where Dalí began to make true the nickname that André Breton had given him while still in Europe: Avida Dollars. It is an anagram composed of the letters of his name and which means ‘thirsty for dollars’. The couple organized many events and she always appeared full of adornments. Upon descending from the ship, arriving in American lands, Dalí appeared with a 2 meter long baguette.

About 6 years after their first visit to the United States, Gala and Dalí returned to the country and stayed there for 8 years. The 2 worked tirelessly. He painted pictures, wrote scripts, even made the set of an Alfred Hitchcock movie and worked for a Walt Disney project, the animation Destino (which only debuted in 2003). He decorated windows and did his best to make money and become famous. She, on the other hand, had inexhaustible energy and was always looking for new contracts. But Gala did not forget her own needs and always sought out lovers younger than herself.

In 1948, Dalí and Gala returned to Spain. He loved his country very much and missed him very much. At this point, the couple had it all: fame, money and success, but something was bothering her. She was getting older. The older she got, the younger and more numerous her lovers were. Gala spent a lot of money on them, giving them cars, jewelry and even paintings by Dalí as gifts.

Despite all this, in 1958, Gala and Dalí decided to get married through the church. During more than half a century of union, Gala never revealed secrets of life together with Dalí. He claimed that for 4 years, the wife kept a diary in Russian, but there was never any confirmation that these records existed.

In 1964, Gala turned 70 at a time when the couple became increasingly distant: she spent a lot of time with admirers and he spent a lot of time with his platonic lover, singer Amanda Lear. In 1968, Dalí committed one of his great extravagances and bought Gala the Castle of Púbol, which he could only visit with her written permission.

Gala spent the last years of her life fighting sadness, always in her castle. In 1982, she broke her femur head and after spending many days in the hospital, she passed away at the age of 88.

Dalí buried her in the Castle of Púbol, in a coffin with a transparent lid. He lived without his great love for another 7 years, in deep depression and affected by the complications of Parkinson’s. In 1989, aged 84, Salvador Dalí passed away and left his entire fortune, including his paintings, to whom he loved perhaps as much as Gala: his native Spain.

People can say what they want about Gala, but if she hadn’t met the painter in 1929, maybe the world wouldn’t have known this genius of surrealism.

What did you think of this woman’s story? What are your favorite paintings by Salvador Dalí? Tell in the comments.