Mexico is a country full of art and history not only for the legacy and talent of its creators, but also for the fact that several artists such as Remedios Varo and Leonora Carrington were exiled in the country and had the opportunity to make known and create their most important works in their careers.
Remedios Varo, became one of the greatest exponents of surrealism along with her friend Leonora, with whom her pieces are sometimes confused because of the magical and mystical touch they both gave them.
María de los Remedios Alicia Rodriga Varo y Uranga, surrealist painter, writer and graphic artist, was born on December 16, 1908 in Anglés, Girona, Spain, and years later moved to Madrid. Surrounded by a wealthy family and very interested in art, at a young age her father taught her some drawing techniques.
Since then she never let go of her dream of becoming a great plastic artist and at the age of 15 she entered the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando, from where she graduated in 1930 with a degree that allowed her to later teach drawing. At that time, she had the opportunity to meet other artists such as Dalí and García Lorca.
In 1930 she moved to Barcelona, where she began to explore the surrealism scene, and in 1933 she married her classmate Gerardo Lizárraga in the church of San Vicente de San Sebastián. Both moved to Paris, but later divorced in 1935.
In 1936 she met the poet Benjamin Péret, with whom she had a relationship and got married on May 10, 1946 in Cholula, Puebla, and soon after she continued to enter the surrealist world thanks to her meeting André Bretón.
Remedios Varo in Mexico
The Spanish painter fled France and settled in Mexico in 1940. There she dedicated herself to advertising and art restoration while making friends with other artists such as Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, Leonora Carrington, Octavio Paz, Wolfgang Paalen and Gordon Onslow Ford.
In 1955 she presented her first exhibition and three years later, in 1958, she won first place in the First Women’s Plastic Arts Salon at the Excelsior Galleries.
Although she remained in Mexico for the rest of her life, she never became a naturalized citizen as her companion Leonora Carrington did.
Her works and psychoanalysis
After she married the Austrian Walter Gruen in 1952, he convinced her to devote herself solely to painting, which she did. In her pieces, Varo captured her taste for mystical and psychoanalytical themes inspired by Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung and Alfred Adler.
Even directly in the name of his works you can see the influence as in ‘The Alchemist’, or ‘Woman leaving the psychoanalyst’ from 1960, in which he even mentioned that the supposed psychoanalyst of his work was called Dr. FJA, by the initials of Freud, Jung and Adler.
Remedios Varo gave a unique touch to her surrealist style by depicting most of the time human figures in a dreamlike and dreamlike atmosphere.
In 1958, she painted ‘Papilla estelar’, one of the artist’s most important and representative works, in which a woman is seen seated feeding a crescent moon in a cage.
How to distinguish the works of Remedios Varo and Leonora Carrington?
Both artists had the same surrealist influence, so it was common to confuse their works, however, each one had her own touch.
Technique
The Spanish artist used to use oil on masonite, which is carving the colors on paper placed on a rough surface. As for colors, she used to use a palette with earth colors such as golds, browns and ochre.
How did Remedios Varo die?
Remedios Varo died at the age of 54 on October 8, 1963 in Mexico City of a heart attack. Her last painting was ‘Naturaleza muerta resucitando’ and the sketch of ‘Música del bosque’.
Story originally published in Cultura Colectiva in Spanish.