Salvador Dali
Spanish, 1904-1989
Gala’s Godly Back, 1974
Drypoint etching with aquatint on paper, 15 3/4 x 12 inches
Gift of John Y. Taggart
1980.11.2
Salvador Dalí was a gifted artist whose talents were recognized at age fifteen when he was awarded his first exhibition. He experimented with many different forms of expression throughout his career, but is best remembered for his Surrealist paintings of the 1930s and 1940s. He was introduced to the writings of Sigmund Freud, André Breton, Federico García Lorca, and the films of Luis Buñuel, all of whom had profound impact on his artistic outlook. This particular composition was inspired by a view of his wife, Gala, seen from a window as she sat on a beach in Cadaqués. “…a back sublime, athletic and fragile, terse and tender, feminine and wiry.” Dali goes as far as saying that Gala almost magically transformed his visions into a classical order, that she enabled him to draw a line between dream and reality that resulted in a sense of objectivity.