The Magic of Remedios Varo

This reprinted volume, originally published in 2000 on the occasion of the first major exhibition of Varo’s art in the United States hosted by the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, DC., studies the full range of Varo’s work. It considers her formal artistic training in the rigid academic atmosphere of the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in Madrid, and her sojourns in Paris in 1930 and 1937, which brought Varo into contact with the surrealist movement of André Breton that was to define her artistic expression for the rest of her career. The main part of the book is devoted to the period following her exile in Mexico in 1940. It was here that Varo’s art became fully defined, and where she was recognized and championed by leading intellectual figures, such as the poet Octavio Paz.

This volume celebrates in 77 beautiful colour paintings the complexity of Varo’s art, which defies easy classification. Inspired by the visual forms of surrealist artists, such as Yves Tanguy and Marcél Jean, but at the same time establishing its own unique vision, the paintings of Remedios Varo evoke a sense of deep mystery that leads us through a complex intellectual world, where cunning, irony and harsh questioning are the cornerstones of art.