Dali Galatea of the Spheres 60 x 80 cm art print

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The Italian fashion designer and couturier (and great rival to Coco Chanel) Elsa Schiaparelli was one of the most prominent figures in fashion between the wars. She and Dalí were introduced by Man Ray around the mid-1930s in Paris and the pair started to collaborate, designing a perfume in the shape of a telephone dial, an actual telephone with a fake lobster as its receiver and the so-called Tears Dress based on Dalí's painting Three Young Surrealist Women Holding in Their Arms Skins of an Orchestra (1936). In 1937 Schiaparelli produced the Shoe Hat which was made famous by Gala. The inspiration for the hat was based on her 1933 photograph of Dalí balancing her slippers on his head and shoulder. The hat was captured for posterity in a photograph by Georges Saad (published in the October 1937 " L'Officiel de la Mode et de la Couture") and Gala herself was shown modeling the hat in a photograph taken by André Maillet the following year. Gala played a vital role in raising the profile of one of the most important movements of the twentieth century. Having gained access to the art world through her first husband, Paul Éluard, who she inspired and encouraged in his writing, she became the muse for other Surrealist group members, notably Max Ernst. However, it was when she began her relationship with Salvador Dalí that she made her greatest impact on the art world. She herself recognized this, once stating, "See, didn't I do well to spurn Ernst? He won't amount to much, while Dalí, after I got my hands on him - what a success! ".

critical association of delirious phenomena." Dali used this method to bring forth the hallucinatory forms, double images and visual illusions that filled his paintings during the Thirties.

It was during this period that Gala and Dalí first made the acquaintance of the fashion designer Christian Dior. Gala was becoming instrumental in raising her husband's profile in Paris and between 1931 and 1933 she helped her husband exhibit in Pierre Colle's small gallery which was part owned by Dior. By now Gala had devoted herself completely to Dalí and his career. She divorced Éluard in 1932 and become Mrs. Gala Dalí in a civil ceremony in 1934. She also abandoned her daughter completely, leaving her in the sole care of Éluard. The newlyweds became co-dependents and she even allowed herself to be dressed by her husband. Gala also participated in his Surrealist performances including their "rebirth as a couple" from a giant egg. Not everyone was happy about this relationship, however. Dalí's father and sister disowned him and while he was reconciled with his father in later years, his sister never accepted their relationship. The surrealists saw in Dali the promise of a breakthrough of the surrealist dilemma. Many of the surrealists had broken away from the movement, feeling that direct political action had to come

Dalì encouraged Gala’s amorous adventures. He often claimed to be a virgin (at least until he met Gala at 25), impotent, and afraid of conventional sex. Dalì and Gala hosted weekly orgies where he played the role of a voyeur. In his 40s, Dalì was busier than ever, but on mostly commercial work. He created fashions in collaboration with Chanel and Schiaparelli. He designed furniture, jewelry, and china. Dalí admitted to having a “pure, vertical, mystical, gothic love of cash.”’ And he went to some lengths to acquire it.

This stunning image was painted in oil on canvas by Salvador Dali in 1952. It features his wife Gala, who often modeled for him and is a wonderful fusion of renaissance style portraiture with Dali's interest in the theories behind the disintegration of the atom.

In reality, both the smallest and largest aspects of the visible creation are designed along similar principles. This is most apparent in the organisation of atomic particles and galaxies. Both of their structures involve spheres, maintaining precise orbits and spatial distribution. It is almost as if an atom contains its own miniature universe. Though many art critics and avant-gardists saw Gala's eagerness to court publicity and embrace the world of celebrity as calculated and vulgar, it was she who spotted the potential for this shy Spanish peasant boy to become the international face of Surrealism. Indeed, it was only through her tenacity and verve that the couple triumphed in America. As Miralles suggests, "without Gala, the great artist might never have been". Galatea of the Spheres is a painting by Salvador Dalí made in 1952. It depicts Gala Dalí, Salvador Dalí's wife and muse, as pieced together through a series of spheres arranged in a continuous array. The name Galatea refers to a sea nymph of Classical mythology renowned for her virtue, and may also refer to the statue beloved by its creator, Pygmalion. In response, she medicated Dalì with Valium, which made him lethargic, and with amphetamines, which woke him up. The latter gave Dalì“irreversible neural damage.” There’s speculation that Gala attempted to poison him. One of the most representative works from the nuclear mysticism period. It is the outcome of a Dali impassioned by science and for the theories of the disintegration of the atom. Gala's face

During the 1940s and 50’s his focus shifted to the natural sciences. The personalities he admired most were Freud and Einstein. During his nuclear mysticism phase, Dalí became interested in DNA structures.

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As with earlier Metamorphosis of Narcissus, Swans Reflecting Elephants uses the reflection in a lake to create the double image seen in the painting. In Metamorphosis, the reflection of Dalí wished for this painting to be displayed on an easel, which had been owned by French painter Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier, in a suite of three rooms called the Palace of the Winds (named for the tramontana) in the Dalí Theatre and Museum in Figueres. It remains on display there to this day. It was transported to and exhibited at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne in 2009, along with many other Dalí paintings in the Liquid Desire exhibition. Gala Dalí was born Elena Ivanovna Diakonova to parents Antonine and Ivan Diakonov. She experienced early family disruption when her father abandoned his wife and four children to search for gold in Siberia. She was just ten when they learned of his death, leaving the family in dire financial straits. Shortly after his passing, however, Gala's mother set up home with a wealthy lawyer. This was considered a scandalous act according to the Russian Orthodox Church which forbade remarriage and barred her from attending all future services. The structure of DNA fascinated Dalí and like all enquiring minds, he set to work implementing it in his art; he created this artwork during his ‘nuclear mysticism’ period’. It is in effect an abstract portrait of his wife, Gala, her face is visible, created from disconnected spheres, the axis of the canvas disappearing in the distance creating the illusion of three dimensions. The three dimensional holographic image, represents a mix of renaissance art and atomic theory, the artists interest in nuclear physics began around 1945 when the first atomic bomb hit Hiroshima in 1945. Gala] always felt more comfortable in the shadows, but like Dalí she also wanted to become a legend one day,” Dalí Museums director Montse Aguer explained in a statement. “This mysterious, cultured woman, a gifted creator, colleague and peer of poets and painters, lived her art and her life in an intensely literary manner. … [She was] Gala, an elegant and sophisticated woman, acutely aware of the image she wanted to project. Gala, the focal point of mythologies, paintings, sketches, engravings, photographs and books. Gala Salvador Dalí.”

An exhibition at the National Art Museum of Catalonia, in Barcelona, tries to piece together Gala’s side of the story, recasting her as not simply a muse, but a writer, conceptual artist and performer ahead of her time. It displays a selection of Dalí’s paintings, photographs of them together, and some of Gala’s letters to family, friends and lovers, as well as a diary that was recently unearthed from her castle in Púbol. The diary is self-consciously literary, and a letter to the artist René Crevel reveals that Gala claimed to be working on a novel – though no manuscript has been found. Gala became Dalì’s frequent model. Over 50 years, Dalí made myriad drawings and paintings of Gala. He depicted her variously as a madonna, an erotic figure, or a mysterious woman. before any mental revolutions. Dali put forth his "Paranoic-Critical method" as an alternative to having to politically conquer the world. He felt that his own vision could be imposed on and color theAlternatively cast as the Virgin Mary, a " Venus of Urbino"-esque reclining figure and a dark, enigmatic woman, Gala appeared in hundreds of her husband’s drawings and paintings. Soon, Salvador even started signing works with their joint signature, “Gala Salvador Dalí,” in honor of his belief that it was “mostly with your blood, Gala, that I paint my pictures.” The lamb chop was subsequently made into a hat by Elsa Schiaparelli, an Italian designer. Another Schiaparelli creation – again from a design by Dalí – was this shoe-hat. With her fashionable clothes, her penchant for fluffy toys, tarot cards, glass eyes and bird skulls, Gala was a kind of female dandy, beloved by fashion designers. is made up of a discontinuous, fragmented setting, densely populated by spheres, which on the axis of the canvas takes on a prodigious three-dimensional vision and perspective. Narcissus is used to mirror the shape of the hand on the right of the picture. Here, the three swans in front of bleak, leafless trees are reflected in the lake so that the swans' heads become