Dali-Gala-Eluard a love “triangle” that made the history of art thanks to the personalities of those involved in the menage. In 1929 the wife of the poet Eluard (the future muse of Dali Gala) runs away with the young and promising surrealist painter. Thus begins the story of one of the most famous couples of the twentieth century. Here is an excerpt from the letter sent by the painter to his rival, in which he certainly does not send them to say:
“Ours is a project, yours was a love like many others and Salvador Dali will forever be the only man who will be able to make it happy. And above all woman… ” READ ALSO: The 5 most famous paintings by Salvador Dali
.
“Dear Paul,
how much passion flows from your letter. What wonderful words, spiritual and carnal, for a woman who was yours and from now on she will not be anymore.
I intercepted, among the numerous secret papers that Gala surrounds herself with, these sheets at times intrusive and embarrassing even if sincere. As a man I should ask why, challenge you to a duel perhaps, but as a poet, artist, since I want to surpass the common measure of beings and raise myself from the pack, I justify and forgive you dear Paul.
Gala, in fact, now lives by reason of me, of my oddity, of my unparalleled talent, of the success to which I am predestined. Dali will be the name that painters and art lovers will pronounce for centuries whenever they think of who has really changed the fate of the aesthetics of our century. And also of the way of life: the poet will no longer be a marginal, suffering figure, destined for a small elite of thinkers closed in their vicious circle.
I also talked about it with my friend Federico \ my extraordinary accomplice of many adventures, a mischievous lover who also can’t stand the proximity of a woman as uncomfortable and demanding as Gala, he is even jealous: yet he had to surrender to the evidence of the facts , that she is destined to live next to me and go through all the time we have left with me.
Dali, Gala, Paul Eluard and Nusch in Port Lligat, 1931
More than anything else, we have a big project in mind. We will soon leave old Europe, dear Catalonia, and embark for America. New York the new metropolis that awaits us, with its lights, its skyscrapers, galleries, collectors and everything in between. We, Gala and I, will be the special guests of every party, people will wonder what we will be able to do to amaze and provoke, how we will dress and what inconvenient truth we will be able to bring out. They will pay us a lot of dollars to have us among them and, but you already know that, Gala is very greedy for wealth and power. You will enjoy being recognized on the street as the inspiring muse of the greatest painter of the twentieth century, Salvador Dali. Together we will be photographed and sign autographs. We will become more famous than Picasso,
You, Paul, what could you have promised
her A dark behind-the-scenes life with your surrealist friends
No, man, Gala isn’t made for that. She is not interested in living under reflected light and wants to be center stage, there will be a moment when they will identify us as one, above bourgeois conventions, of those little feelings of possession and jealousy that shouldn’t belong to artists. .
We will always be together while not always sharing the same bed, we will chase ourselves through other gazes, other bodies. We would have lovers and we will be loved, in a short circuit where everything is confused while remaining true to itself. Ours is a project, yours was a love like many others and Salvador Dali will forever be the only man who will be able to make her happy. And above all a woman. ” READ ALSO: Dali-Lear, a “spiritual menage”
