Gala Éluard

Max Ernst

1924 · Oil on canvas · Modern and Contemporary Art

This evocative portrait reveals the deeply intertwined personal and artistic lives of members of the Surrealist circle and depicts the movement’s fascination with dreamlike states. Gala Éluard was muse and lover to three members of the Surrealist movement: her two husbands, poet Paul Éluard and artist Salvador Dalí, and Ernst, who painted this work based on Man Ray’s photograph of Éluard’s eyes. With curious forms rising from her unfurling forehead, Éluard becomes an imagined embodiment of Surrealism’s wide-eyed interest in art’s power to explore the mysterious territories of the unconscious mind.

Artist

Max Ernst

Date

1924

Medium

Oil on canvas

Department

Modern and Contemporary Art

Credit line

The Muriel Kallis Steinberg Newman Collection, Gift of Muriel Kallis Newman, 2006