THE daughter of a woman who is fighting to prove surrealist painter Salvador Dalí is her late illegitimate father has been found dead on a bench in Girona.
As yet, the cause of Elisabeth Martín Abel’s demise is not known.
Catalunya regional police, the Mossos d’Esquadra, found the 39-year-old on a bench in the Costa Brava capital’s Plaça Calvet i Rubalcaba just weeks after the young woman’s own grandmother, Antonia Martínez, passed away from pneumonia.
This comes as a double tragedy for Pilar Abel, whose mother had always insisted she was the result of a love affair with Dalí.
Pilar’s paternity suit led to Dalí’s body being exhumed for DNA testing, but the case failed.
She says Antonia used to work as a maid to the family next door to the artist in Cadaqués, Girona province, and they had an affair in 1955, leading to Pilar’s being born the following year.
Antonia said she moved out of the area and married another man as soon as she knew she was pregnant.
At the time of the alleged extra-marital relationship, Dalí’s wife was his muse Elena Ivanovna Diakonova, known as ‘Gala’, and they did not have any children together.
Even after her mother’s death in February and nearly four years after losing the paternity claim, Pilar insists she will ‘not stop fighting’.
Her appeal has been accepted for review by the court, but has not yet been heard.
Picture of Salvador Dalí from Sir Elton John’s photography collection
