Salvador Dali

Gala and Eluard divorced in 1932 and she married Dali on August 30, 1934 in a civil ceremony at the municipal council headquarters in Paris’ XIV arrondissement. A church service waited another 26 years — until after Eluard died, thus voiding any reluctance to offend the Catholic Church.

Paul Eluard, who had first “introduced” Dali to Gala by showing him photos of her posing in the nude, was invited to attend the 1934 ceremony but declined. Biographer Ian Gibson surmised that, sharing the surrealist penchant for “free love”, Eluard would have found the rites trite and bourgeois.

In attendance as official witnesses, though, were the painters Yves Tanguy and André Gaston, the latter a resident of the building, at 7 Rue Gauguet, where Dali had his studio. LINK