.Ecklekctic

life. 

Alma Maria Schindler's first kiss, at 17, was with Gustav Klimt, and she continued to surround herself with notable men thereafter. Born in Vienna in 1897, she was passionate about music, but stopped writing her own for about a decade once she became engaged to her first husband, composer Gustav Mahler. During their marriage, Alma had an affair with the man who would become her second husband, architect and future head of the Bauhaus Walter Gropius. They divorced after she became pregnant with the child of writer Franz Werfel, who would become her third husband. The only true love her life, however, was Expressionist artist Oskar Kokoschka, who over the years gave her seven fans as a token of his devotion (he described them as “love letters in pictorial form”). The Bride Of The Wind (1913) was also painted as a tribute to her, alongside some 450 works on paper and a poem, Allos Makar.

17-year-old Gala Diakonova met Paul Éluard in Switzerland, and fell madly in love with him. They were married in 1917, and she was introduced to his fellow Surrealists, who considered her their muse. For a few years, the couple carried on a ménage à trois with artist Max Ernst. She left her first husband for Salvador Dalí, ten years her junior, after they met in Costa Brava. The duo married in 1958, Gala assuming the role of manager and muse to the artist for the rest of her life, despite taking on many other lovers.

Jorge Luis Borges