Surreal The extraordinary life of Gala Dalí

Iconic artist Salvador Dalí would not have been an international sensation without Gala, his older, more sophisticated Russian soulmate. As Klein documents in this eye-opening and entertaining landmark biography, Gala "played wife, tigress, lover and mother, fashion influencer and model, art-world royalty and art critic, muse, collaborator, dealer, business-licensing manager, hard-nosed negotiator, welcoming hostess, bill collector, nurse, and always the recurring mystical centerpiece of her husband's work." Gala's first husband was the French poet Paul Éluard, whom she also inspired and guided as she reigned supreme as a unifying force in the surrealist movement while embarking on a very public affair with Max Ernst. When she met a young, precocious, dandified Spanish artist and discovered their profound rapport, she marshalled all her powers to make him a star as they married and became so entwined Dalí signed his radical paintings "Gala-Salvador Dalí." Klein is the first to chart Gala's roller-coaster life in full, from her creativity and sense of style to her social acumen, PR genius, cosmopolitan perspective, literary talent, "Midas Touch," health issues, and the risks of such enormous success and notoriety. 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.

Journalist Klein (Charles James) paints a textured, comprehensive portrait of the "mother of Surrealism." Born in Russia on an unknown day in a disputed year (either 1890 or 1894), Gala Dalí (née Diakonova) grew up a curious but sickly child in a volatile family. She began to hone her artistic eye in 1912 after a nebulous collection of symptoms led to a stay in the Swiss sanatarium where she met, mentored, and edited the writings of Eugène Émile Paul Grindel, who later published as Paul Éluard--a pioneer of the surrealism movement and eventually her first husband. Their marriage began to crumble in 1929 after Gala entered into an affair with Salvador Dalí, whom she married in 1934. She quickly became deeply enmeshed in Dalí's career, from negotiating contracts and payments to serving as an unofficial "life coach" (her influence on his work was so profound that after 1930 he signed many of his paintings with both their names). Klein depicts 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. (Apr.)

An overdue, comprehensive biography of a surrealist instigator. Biographer Klein's account of one of the driving forces of the surrealist movement is wonderfully thorough and rescues Gala Dalí from being cast in the role of "mere" muse, reclaiming her as the definitive artist and collaborator she was. Klein uses her subject's first name throughout the book, essential because Gala held three surnames in her lifetime, two of them shared with far better-known men: French poet Paul Éluard and Spanish artist Salvador Dalí. Gala's life and work have long been overshadowed by the famous men she was entangled with as husbands and lovers. Klein's biography convincingly demonstrates how Gala was a singular player in the development of a major 20th-century art movement, whether in choosing the pen name for her first husband (born Eugène Émile Paul Grindel), while co-writing and editing his earliest poems, or creating work with Salvador Dalí, who often signed pieces with both their names: Gala Salvador Dalí. While Klein can deploy memorable turns of phrase, such as noting that Gala's lover Max Ernst "exuded the sex appeal of a fallen angel," this account of an astonishing life is surprisingly conventional. It's a traditional soup-to-nuts chronological account, with an odd lack of emotional tension or psychological insight, especially since surrealism concerned itself with mining the depths of the unconscious and the wild and woolly ways it might reveal itself. Although there is much about lavish interior decoration (for example), there is less about Gala's only child, Cécile Éluard, who is nearly absent in this biography of "the mother of Surrealism." A thorough account of Gala Dalí's dramatic life and importance to surrealism, but short on emotional drive. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.