When you think of a house related to Dalí, you likely envision scenes from Cadaqués, a small coastal town in northern Spain where Dalí lived. This house is a testament to Dalí's unique style, featuring staircases that lead nowhere, taxidermy swans, and a striking giant egg on the roof, which I believe should become a standard architectural feature. The egg's heavenly shape epitomizes Dalí's artistic vision. His house is a haven for design and art enthusiasts, having been featured in World of Interiors and House & Garden. However, I want to draw your attention to its lesser-known counterpart, Casa Gala.
Gala Dalí, born Elena Ivanovna Diakonova in Russia in 1894, had an intriguing and turbulent life. At ten, her father ventured to Siberia to dig for gold but never returned. This tragedy likely instilled an early focus on financial security in Gala, who would later control a considerable fortune. Her mother remarried, and as Gala grew older, she felt an urgent need to escape her life in Russia. At seventeen, she contracted tuberculosis and was sent to Switzerland to recuperate. There, she met the poet Paul Éluard. In 1917, she navigated war-torn Europe to marry him, starting a uniquely unconventional marriage. They defied societal norms, exploring various ways to sustain their marriage, including a relationship where the artist Max Ernst left his wife and child to move in with them. Ernst's wife, Luise Straus-Ernst, described Gala as "a slithering, glittering creature with dark falling hair, vaguely oriental, luminous black eyes and small delicate bones, reminiscent of a panther. This almost silent, avaricious woman, who, having failed to entice her husband into an affair with me to get to Max, decided to keep both men with Éluard's loving consent."
Ernst, Éluard, and Gala maintained this ménage à trois for eighteen months. It ended peculiarly, with Éluard leaving a restaurant with Ernst, Gala, and other friends under the pretence of getting matches, only to travel to Marseille and board a steamer. Following the French ships that carried Gauguin through the Panama Canal to the South Pacific islands, Éluard continued into Rimbaud and Conrad's territories in Southeast Asia. Ernst and Gala met him in Saigon, after which Gala and Éluard returned to France, their relationship with Ernst concluding without further discussion.
Gala was a remarkable figure in the Surrealist movement. She was a close friend of René Crevel and René Char, two leading French Surrealist writers, and modelled for Man Ray, the American artist and photographer. However, her relationships with other prominent Surrealists were often tense; she was not known for her demure and unassuming character. In 1929, Gala met her most famous and enduring partner, Salvador Dalí. The Éluards travelled to Spain to visit the budding artist, where a love-struck Gala left Éluard and their daughter to join Dalí in his fisherman's house outside Cadaqués.
Dalí and Gala married in 1934. Over five decades, Dalí created hundreds of drawings and paintings of Gala, portraying her as the Madonna, an erotic figure, or a dark and mysterious woman. Dalí even began signing some paintings, "Gala Salvador Dalí," reflecting their deep bond.
In 1969, Dalí and Gala purchased Casa Gala. The castle in Púbol, dating back to the 11th century, had seen better days, but Dalí's impeccable eye for beauty and Gala's exquisite fashion sense transformed it into a unique home. Dalí envisioned a sanctuary for his beloved Gala, restoring it with a blend of Gothic and Renaissance elements infused with his signature surrealist touch. The result is a space that is both timeless and fantastical, much like the couple themselves.
Walking through the house, I was amazed at the speed with which other visitors toured the rooms. There was so much to absorb. It was impossible to rush. There were countless elements and extraordinary details. Each radiator was hidden by a beautiful rattan shield or behind a Trompe-l'œil-painted door. Lamps were built into the walls, coffee tables built into the floor that peeked into the room below, tall, loose white covers over the chairs, and the most marvellous fireplace I have ever seen.
In 1982, Gala died. Dalí and Gala had been together for 53 years. She had met him as an impoverished painter, but by the eighties, he was one of Spain's most prominent artists, and they had amassed a vast fortune. Their marriage was, in a word, complicated. They were two extraordinary and, in my mind, exhausting individuals, never ones for dull moments. Their interests and actions were shocking and not always pleasant. Gala has long been viewed as a muse, a femme fatale, a cuckold, and a spendthrift. Not perhaps someone you would want as a friend, but undoubtedly fascinating to read about. One of my favourite anecdotes from her final years was that Dalí could not visit the castle in Púbol without a handwritten invitation from Gala, a practice they both enjoyed and adhered to. After her death, Dalí was grief-stricken, denying entry to friends and aides and forbidding anyone to utter her name. "When I walk around this house, I look at myself and see my concentricity. I like its Moorish rigour. I needed to offer Gala a case solemnly worthy of our love. That is why I gave her a mansion built on the remains of a 12th-century castle: the old castle of Púbol in La Bisbal, where she would reign like an absolute sovereign, to the point that I could visit her only by handwritten invitation. I limited myself to the pleasure of decorating her ceilings so that when she raised her eyes, she would always find me in her sky." ('When Your Muse Is Also a Demonic Dominatrix', by Nina-Sophia Miralles July 10, 2018, Paris Review).
Gala is buried in a crypt at the bottom of Casa Gala, designed by Dalí to resemble a chessboard. She was laid to rest in her favourite red Dior dress. Dalí also wished to be buried there, but two years after her death, the castle caught fire, and he was severely burned. He did not want to return to Púbol, and in 1989, after years of suffering for himself and those who cared for him, he died and was buried in his Theatre Museum in the nearby town of Figueres.
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