Paul Éluard (French, 1895 - 1952), born Eugène Grindel, was a prolific poet and prominent member of the Surrealist movement. He published his first book Le Devoir et l'Inquiétude (1917) under the name Paul Éluard while still serving in the infantry in World War I. He was married to Gala, the eventual wife of Salvador Dalí, from 1917-1930, and went on to marry Maria “Nusch” Benz in 1934. He joined the French Communist Party in 1927, which marked a turn toward politics in his writing. Following the Spanish Civil War abandoned surrealist writing and dedicated himself fully to politics, taking an active role in opposing Francoism in Spain and later Nazism in Occupied France. Man Ray met Éluard in Paris in the early 1920s, while Éluard was living with Gala and Max Ernst, whom the couple had smuggled into the country.