Lot Essay
Gala Eluard, the subject of this painting, was born Helena Deluvina Diakinoff at Kazan on the Volga sometime in the early 1890s. She first came to the west in 1912 to be treated for tuberculosis at a Swiss sanatorium at Clavadel where she met her husband to be, Paul Eluard. She and Eluard fell in love in the rarefied atmosphere of the sanatorium but in 1914 Gala had to return to Russia and did not meet Eluard again until she travelled on her own to Paris in 1916 where the young lovers were soon married.
In 1920 Paul Eluard saw an exhibition of Max Ernst's work at the Au Sans Pareil gallery and was so taken by it that he travelled with Gala to Cologne to persuade Ernst to move to Paris. Gala immediately set about conquering her husband's new acquaintance. Lou Strauss Ernst, Max's wife at the time called Gala, "that Russian female...that slithering, glittering creature with dark falling hair, vaguely oriental and luminous black eyes, and small delicate bones, who reminded me of a panther." (J. Ernst, A not so Still Life, New York, 1984, p. 28).
Ernst fell swiftly for Gala's charms and Eluard seemed to acquiesce in what came to develop into a ménage à trois. "Eluard liked group sex, preferring a triangle which included another man, and so did Gala" (M. Etherington-Smith, Dalí, London, 1992, p. 137). Throughout the early 1920s the two Eluards and Max Ernst formed a closeknit group often living together and frequently taking holidays together. Ernst painted all the decorations for the Eluard's house in Eaubonne on the edge of the forest of Montmorency.
Gala soon insinuated herself into the very heart of the Surrealist group that was growing in Paris. She travelled with Ernst and Eluard wherever they went and publicly flaunted her behaviour. Tristan Tzara complained, "of course we don't give a damn about what they do, or who sleeps with whom. But why must Gala make such a Dostoevsky drama? It's boring, insufferable and unheard of." (J. Ernst, loc. cit., p. 73).
"Gala was not creative. But her self-confessed clairvoyance and her liberal attitude towards sex ensured that she was one of the few women taken seriously by the Surrealists, who respected her critical attitude towards their work." (M. Etherington-Smith, loc. cit., p. 139). By 1924 this curious triangle was beginning to fragment. Eluard left for a long journey to the east on his own and although Gala and Ernst later followed him, Ernst too was beginning to tire of the arrangement although they did not make a clean break as their lives and work were so closely bound together that they could not but help continuing to see each other.
Gala enjoyed being at the centre of the Surrealists and when Ernst tired of her she moved onto the young Spaniard, Salvador Dalí, eventually divorcing Eluard and marrying him. André Thirion in Revolutionairies without Revolution (London, 1972, p. 181) remembers her at a Surrealist gathering in 1927, "Gala knew what she wanted, the pleasures of the heart and the senses, money and the companionship of genius. She was not interested in politics or philosophy, she judged people by their efficiency in the real world and eliminated those who were mediocre, yet she could inspire the passions and exalt the creative forces of men as diverse as Ernst, Eluard and Dalí."
In 1920 Paul Eluard saw an exhibition of Max Ernst's work at the Au Sans Pareil gallery and was so taken by it that he travelled with Gala to Cologne to persuade Ernst to move to Paris. Gala immediately set about conquering her husband's new acquaintance. Lou Strauss Ernst, Max's wife at the time called Gala, "that Russian female...that slithering, glittering creature with dark falling hair, vaguely oriental and luminous black eyes, and small delicate bones, who reminded me of a panther." (J. Ernst, A not so Still Life, New York, 1984, p. 28).
Ernst fell swiftly for Gala's charms and Eluard seemed to acquiesce in what came to develop into a ménage à trois. "Eluard liked group sex, preferring a triangle which included another man, and so did Gala" (M. Etherington-Smith, Dalí, London, 1992, p. 137). Throughout the early 1920s the two Eluards and Max Ernst formed a closeknit group often living together and frequently taking holidays together. Ernst painted all the decorations for the Eluard's house in Eaubonne on the edge of the forest of Montmorency.
Gala soon insinuated herself into the very heart of the Surrealist group that was growing in Paris. She travelled with Ernst and Eluard wherever they went and publicly flaunted her behaviour. Tristan Tzara complained, "of course we don't give a damn about what they do, or who sleeps with whom. But why must Gala make such a Dostoevsky drama? It's boring, insufferable and unheard of." (J. Ernst, loc. cit., p. 73).
"Gala was not creative. But her self-confessed clairvoyance and her liberal attitude towards sex ensured that she was one of the few women taken seriously by the Surrealists, who respected her critical attitude towards their work." (M. Etherington-Smith, loc. cit., p. 139). By 1924 this curious triangle was beginning to fragment. Eluard left for a long journey to the east on his own and although Gala and Ernst later followed him, Ernst too was beginning to tire of the arrangement although they did not make a clean break as their lives and work were so closely bound together that they could not but help continuing to see each other.
Gala enjoyed being at the centre of the Surrealists and when Ernst tired of her she moved onto the young Spaniard, Salvador Dalí, eventually divorcing Eluard and marrying him. André Thirion in Revolutionairies without Revolution (London, 1972, p. 181) remembers her at a Surrealist gathering in 1927, "Gala knew what she wanted, the pleasures of the heart and the senses, money and the companionship of genius. She was not interested in politics or philosophy, she judged people by their efficiency in the real world and eliminated those who were mediocre, yet she could inspire the passions and exalt the creative forces of men as diverse as Ernst, Eluard and Dalí."