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Magnetic and manipulative – the enigma of Gala Dali

Countless people apparently found her fascinating, but apart from being shrewd, scary, intelligent and very beady about money, it’s hard to see why

Lynn Barber
Gala Dali, photographed for Vogue in 1943 Horst P. Horst/Conde Nast via Getty Images
EXPLORE THE ISSUE 19 April 2025
issue 19 April 2025
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  • Surreal: The Extraordinary Life of Gala Dali

    Michèle Gerber Klein

    Virago, pp. 336, £30

Salvador Dali’s wife Gala was born Elena Ivanova Diakonova in 1894 in Kazan, on the banks of the Volga. Her father was an abusive alcoholic who vanished when she was ten. Her mother, a midwife, moved the family to Moscow where Elena attended an exclusive school. But in 1913 she started coughing, so was sent to a Swiss sanatorium, Clavadel.

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