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Gala Éluard

Max Ernst French, born Germany
1924
Not on view
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.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Gala Éluard
  • Artist: Max Ernst (French (born Germany), Brühl 1891–1976 Paris)
  • Date: 1924
  • Medium: Oil on canvas
  • Dimensions: 32 in. × 25 3/4 in. (81.3 × 65.4 cm)
  • Classification: Paintings
  • Credit Line: The Muriel Kallis Steinberg Newman Collection, Gift of Muriel Kallis Newman, 2006
  • Object Number: 2006.32.15
  • Rights and Reproduction: © 2025 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
  • Curatorial Department: Modern and Contemporary Art

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