Remedios Varo's mysticism lives on over half a century later

Spanish-Mexican painter María de los Remedios Alicia Rodriga Varo y Uranga, known simply as Remedios Varo, has become one of those most well-known surrealist painters of all time over 50 years after her death.

The Museum of Modern Art in Mexico City currently has an intimate collection of 39 pieces by the painter on display titled “Remedios Varo: Sketches and Anecdotes (Apuntes y anecdotas),” which runs through February 2017.

Varo, who was born in Girona, Spain on December 16, 1908 and became a naturalized Mexican citizen in 1941, developed a style that, according to specialists, explored mysticism with a touch of psychoanalysis and focused heavily on dreamlike elements and archetypes.

In 1924, Remedios Vario began her studies at the San Fernando Academy in Madrid, where she stayed for six years and met renowned artists such as Maruja Mallo and Salvador Dalí.

During Spain's civil war that lasted between 1936 and 1939, Varo met her then future husband, French writer Benjamin Péret. It was during this time that Remedios Varo became directly involved in the surrealist movement by participating in several exhibits at the time and developing a relationship with her peers.

When Germany invaded France, Varo and her husband fled Paris and sought asylum in Mexico in 1941, where she worked as a prehispanic art restorer and interior designer.

After befriending famous figures of the art world such as Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo and Leonara Carrington, Varo and Péret divorced in 1947 and, as a result, Varo decided to leave to Venezuela for some time, returning to Mexico 6 years later in 1953, at which time she married her second husband, Austrian politician Walter Gruense.

Upon her return to Mexico, Remedios Varo went back to painting, and this is when she developed the personal style that has gone on to define her career and for which she is best known.

Her paintings from this era explore the occult sciences and alchemy, as well as the scientific advances at the time in mathematics, astronomy, botany and biology.

Varo's style can be described as a delicate dance between reality and our dreams, the conscious and unconscious, the past and present, with her subjects neither female or male. The figures challenge stereotypes and the societal gender norms that held her back during her time.

Unlike Salvador Dalí and photographer Hans Bellmer, who have often been criticized for their misogynistic portrayal of women, Varo broke the mold of the standard surrealist woman by instead depicting independent women in search of individual identities.

Despite Remedios Varo not receiving the same level of acclaim and recognition as her male contemporaries while alive, today she is considered to be one of the most important and influential figures in the surrealist art movement.

Leonara Carrington once said about Varo that “she was someone whose simple presence impacted your life. For us women, our lives greatly benefited and changed thanks in part to the movements that women, such as Remedios Varo, helped create through their art.”

RBL