“Do you smoke? I have waged a titanic struggle against nicotine and smoke in general. I have partially conquered the issue and on my good days I only smoke six cigarettes. On days of homesickness, depression and when everything is a rampage, well, then, I don’t know!”
Remedios Varo may be your favorite painter. Maybe you have seen all her paintings and attended all the exhibitions where her works are present. Maybe you’ve identified with her beautiful and strange female figures who feed the moon, who weave in a high tower, who ride bicycles, and even those who come out from the psychoanalyst. But surely you don’t know everything, and to prove it -and help you love her even more- we present 12 things that you didn’t know about the life of this magical woman.
Countdown, Who Was Remedios Varo?
12. The origin of her name
Remedios was named ‘Remedios’ because before her, her older sister died. In her mother’s distress, she consecrated the baby to the Virgen de los Remedios (Our Lady of Remedies).
11. Her mother’s religiousness
Remedios’s mother was a deeply religious woman. The painter did not like that very much, so much that in her paintings – as is made clear in the triptych confirmed by “Towards Escape”, “Embroidering the Earthly Mantle” and “The Flight” – she shows her desire to escape from the maternal and religious yoke.
10. She studied in the same place where Dalí was expelled from
Remedios’s father, knowing his daughter’s love for art, enrolled her in the San Fernando Academy in Madrid. The same place where, years before, Salvador Dalí studied but was expelled for bad behavior.
9. Her first, unknown paintings
In 1932 she began to work for an advertising house. During those years, she produced “Composition” – in 1935 – and “L’agent Double” – in 1936 – these pieces are among the Spanish painter’s least well-known, but it is possible to see from them the style she would develop in later years.
“L’agent Double” (1936)
“Composición” (1935)
8. “Le désir”, her debut
This is the work with which she took part in the International Exhibition of Surrealism in Tokyo. This was after meeting the leading representatives of this movement in Paris, where, incidentally, she also met Leonora Carrington, who was to become her lifelong friend. It was a kind of “debut” in art on a world scale.
7. She was in prison
From 1939 to 1940, Remedios was imprisoned. This was for hiding in her house a French soldier who was fleeing from the government. She never spoke about it, so the details of her imprisonment are unknown.
6. She was a costume designer
Upon her arrival to Mexico, Remedios and her partner Bénjamin Peret – a French surrealist poet – immediately began to form a solid circle of friends, among them, Octavio Paz. Because of the relationships they established, Remedios collaborated on the costumes used by the Aleko Ballet staged at Bellas Artes.
5. Esoteric Remedios
Her biographers claim that the painter felt affinities with the esoteric current known as the Fourth Way, founded by George Gurdjieff and Piotr Demyanovich Ouspenski. However – although she may have persuaded a friend to join – she never joined any kind of sect.
4. Science and Remedios
After her break-up with Péret in 1947, she returns to France and decides to go to Venezuela. In the South American country she studied mosquitoes with her older brother and helped him by making huge drawings of these dangerous insects and even advertising campaigns for pharmaceutical companies. It is said that due to her strong desire to return to Mexico, she searched for gold in the Orinoco River. The search was unsuccessful, but she did find a way back.
3. Disgusted by banks
Varo was tired of working for money, she was fed up with commercials. However, her talent was such that she couldn’t go unnoticed. An anecdote, taken from her official website, recounts that one day “a banker came to see her to commission a mural on the history of banking“. After a few moments of reflection, Remedios said “Yes, it could be done. I imagine a man at the entrance to his cave with a pile of bones that he is protecting with a big sledgehammer”. Of course, the person in question did not show up again”.
2. The painting that she could never finish
Curiously, the last oil painting she completed was “Still Life Resuscitating”. However, after this, she began “Music of the Forest”, but she was unable to finish it as death surprised her on 8 October 1963.
1. A bizarre reference
Bedtime, a song composed by Börjk and performed by Madonna, is inspired by the surrealist painter’s canvas “The Lovers”. It is possible to see the “queen of pop” herself in the video staging the scene.
Remedios was a woman who, despite her introverted personality, explored all human boundaries. Her prolix work shows an extraordinary and profound sensitivity. We are grateful for her and fondly remember her for it. This can be seen not only in each of her paintings but also in her remarkable life.
Probably, the love you feel for this painter made you open this article and as you went through each of the points mentioned, you loved her even more.
This story was originally published in Spanish by Cultura Colectiva.
