REMEDIOS VARO: ENCUENTROS by Gallery Wendi Norris

REMEDIOS VARO

ENCUENTROS

INTRODUCTION ARTWORK + ESSAYS NOTES ARTWORK DETAILS CURRICULUM VITAE 1 4 71 75 87

This catalogue was written on the occasion of Remedios Varo’s second posthumous solo gallery exhibition, Remedios Varo: Encuentros, open May 11 - July 15, 2023 at Gallery Wendi Norris’ headquarters in San Francisco. Uniting eleven of Varo’s paintings and works on paper, the exhibition takes its name from the painting Encuentro (1959), on view. The idea of the encuentro or “encounter” runs throughout the works on view: chance encounters between two beings, encounters with the self or the cosmos, encounters with the afterlife, encounters with the unexpected.

The theme of the encounter—a chance meeting or unexpected experience—informed the curatorial logic and design of the exhibition. We hung a floating wall in the entrance to the show (inspired by the exhibition design of Peggy Guggenheim’s Art of this Century gallery) featuring Ruptura (1955), intended to arrest and entrance visitors and passers-by on the street. We wanted visitors to the gallery to experience the exhibition as a series of encounters with each of the works on view. By staging the show with this in mind, we hope to highlight Varo’s ability to startle and enchant, and to welcome visitors into the madcap and marvelous universe that she created.

I first experienced Varo’s work in 2002, when I acquired her iconic painting Papilla estelar (1958). In this painting, a central female figure, presumably the artist herself, grinds up stars from above to feed them to an encaged moon. Tender and luminescent, the imagery struck me as uncanny and left me wanting more. I set out to learn and discover, to delight in as many of her works as possible. Shortly after I began this Varo quest, leading Varo scholar Tere Arcq introduced me to Walter Gruen, Varo’s widower. Over multiple visits to Mexico City, Walter and Leonora Carrington, Varo’s (and my) dear friend, shared countless stories about Varo’s tireless devotion to her practice, along with the ins and outs of her daily life.

WENDI NORRIS

INTRODUCTION

In 2012, my gallery presented Varo’s first solo gallery show since 1963. The exhibition was titled Indelible Fables and presented an overview of Varo’s drawing and painting, many of which had never been on view since her death or outside of Mexico. We also staged a performative dinner by gallery artist Julio César Morales, inspired by Remedios and Leonora’s surrealist cookbook, which was on view in a vitrine of important ephemera. We wanted to introduce a wide and important audience to Varo’s “compelling alternate universe of flux and transformation, a reality seemingly composed from magic itself.” In the intervening decade since Indelible Fables, Varo has gone from being a niche artist known in Mexico and among art-world insiders, to an internationally acclaimed modern master, with growing museum, market, and public enthusiasm.

Remedios passed away unexpectedly at the age of 54, at the height of her talent and productivity. Due to her untimely death and the fact that she was too poor to afford art supplies for much of her life, her body of work is relatively small. She made approximately 365 works, around 120 of which are oil paintings. The fact that her oeuvre is modest in size and, until recently, that her work has not been heavily exhibited, makes me all the more excited to have the opportunity to present Remedios Varo: Encuentros to the public.

The exhibition and this catalogue are the product of years of working to preserve, expand, and enrich the legacy of Remedios Varo, and to share the gallery’s expertise and Varo’s gifts with the world. The works on view in the exhibition and under discussion in this catalogue are of unparalleled quality. Each demonstrates an aspect of Varo’s technical prowess and is a window into her uncanny ability to transform even the most mundane subject matter—a still life, for instance—into a cosmological meditation on the boundlessness of the universe and the possibilities of life after death. This catalogue is an invitation to delve deeper into each of the works and to encounter the mastery and the magic of Remedios Varo.

1947 —

La torre Gouache on paper

6 3/4 x 10 1/4 inches (17 x 26 cm)

La torre (1947) is a tiny, enigmatic painting. The central form in the composition is a dilapidated tower. Its crenellations have fallen into disrepair and been overrun by vegetation. This tower serves as a reservoir of water within which another taller and thinner tower emerges. Atop the pool of water floats a mysterious white contraption—an impossible sort of boat constructed with a board, a wheel, and a pinwheel, connected to each other by spindly white rods. A small red-haired figure with her back to the viewer balances atop the vessel. She looks out from her perch at a barren landscape devoid of living things save two female figures who travel white paths extending in opposite directions from the central tower. One, riding a fantastical tricycle, heads in the direction of the tower, while the other runs away from the tower, toward the distant horizon.1 All of the figures are female and entirely clad in white. A sense of nostalgia and abandonment pervades the work. Overgrowth creeps over the old tower, and the darkening sky endows the painting with a melancholic and slightly ominous tone. However, a nascent hopefulness, a kernel of possibility, intermingles with the sense of loss and longing. Perhaps these women are not running away from but progressing toward. Their presence in an otherwise desolate landscape suggests the possibility of new life amid the ruins.

Painted during a transitional period in the artist’s life and career, La torre acts as a bridge between Varo’s European upbringing and her new situation as an émigré in Mexico City, her home for the rest of her life. It is also a bridge between her early work steeped in Surrealism and her later work using a miniaturist painting technique that she developed and refined during the following decade. Both the style and the subject matter of La torre speak to this pivotal phase in Varo’s biography. The meticulous execution of infinitesimal details would become a signature of Varo’s mature body of work, created roughly between 1955 and 1963. In La torre, one can see this stylistic propensity for hyperrealistic rendering begin to emerge.2 The theme—travel into the unknown—reinforces a biographical reading, as does the central figure with red hair, who can be understood as a surrogate for the copper-haired artist.

Furthermore, the tower is a central motif in Varo’s visual vocabulary from her earliest days as an artist. Perhaps a nod to the enigmatic towers of Giorgio de Chirico, whose influence on the artist is very evident in early works like La torre, tower forms appear in works such as Ícono (1945), A mi amigo Agustín Lazo (1945), El flautista (1955), Bordando el manto terrestre (1961), and Tránsito en espiral (1962), among many others. The tower iconography that Varo frequently employed speaks to her interest in Renaissance masters, specifically Netherlandish artists like Hieronymus Bosch and Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Bruegel’s Tower of Babel (c. 1560 and 1563), with its Romanesque architecture, serves as a touchpoint for the symbolic gravity of this architectural form. The tower is also the sixteenth card of the major arcana of the tarot, a symbolic system whose iconography appears throughout Varo’s art.3 In the major arcana, the tower card symbolizes powerful, disruptive change, a sudden crisis or calamity. It is a portent of distress and adversity, out of which can come liberation and ascension. Varo’s La torre conveys this tension between ruination and liberation, backward and forward motion, nostalgia and hopefulness. Looking back while journeying forward, Varo was, in 1947, suspended precariously between her experiences in war-torn Europe and the new life she was building in Mexico, harnessing hope for what lay ahead, just over the horizon.

ON LA TORRE 7

Estudio para Trasmundo c. 1955 — Oil on canvas 16 1/2 x 21 1/4 inches

(42 x 54 cm)

In Estudio para Trasmundo (c. 1955), a crewless ship sails through misty gray waters. The ship is propelled by a large pinwheel sail, which, in turn, powers wheels attached to either side of the ship’s hull. Such fantastical engineering (nonsensical yet plausible) is a touchstone of the work of Remedios Varo, whose father was a hydraulic engineer. She repeatedly painted whimsical machines and impossible vessels. They transform and transport her figures in, for example, Roulette (1955), El malabarista o El juglar (1956), and Exploración de las fuentes del río Orinoco (1959). At the bow and stern of the ship in Estudio para Trasmundo are simple cupolas. Light glows from their interiors, signaling human activity, but no figure is visible to the viewer. Seemingly without a captain or crew, the ship glides silently and perilously amid craggy rock formations shrouded in fog. As the title Trasmundo (meaning “afterworld”) suggests, this ship is traveling across a watery expanse—a River Styx of sorts—and into another dimension or realm of existence: the afterlife.

A preparatory study for Trasmundo (1955), this work demonstrates a critical moment in Varo’s artistic process. Her painterly technique, honed over many years, combined meticulously rendered primary subjects with loosely painted atmospheric backgrounds. To achieve her desired result, the artist made incredibly detailed preparatory drawings, which she often transposed onto the canvas using tracing paper. In addition to these line drawings, she sometimes created fully realized studies, testing her compositional ideas directly on canvas. Estudio para Trasmundo is one such study. It shares Trasmundo’s overarching pictorial structure and painterly facture. But it omits certain details: the whirlpools and currents in the water; a headless figure, shadow, and pieces of clothing strewn across the ship’s deck. The two works—study and final painting— share an otherworldly sensibility and ethereal mood. While in Trasmundo, the journey to the afterlife feels more foreboding, in Estudio, the threshold being crossed appears to be a peaceful one.

Travel is a powerful and enduring theme in the work of Remedios Varo, for reasons specific to both the artist’s life and the philosophical ideas that fascinated her. On a literal level, Varo’s life was defined by travel. As a young and aspiring artist, she moved from her hometown of Girona to Madrid to study painting at the prestigious Academia de San Fernando. After graduating, she traveled between Barcelona and Paris, two centers of artistic avant-gardes in the early 20th century. These instances of voluntary travel were followed by experiences of forced exile: the first due to the Spanish Civil War, which drove her from Spain to Paris in 1937, and the second because of World War II, which compelled her to flee Paris for Mexico City in 1941.

The art historian and Varo biographer Janet Kaplan refers to the recurring motif of the voyage in Varo’s paintings as “journey-as-metaphor,” a phrase that captures the multifarious ways in which the theme of travel informed her art. Kaplan writes: “Transforming the idea of travel from a forced necessity to a personal symbol, [Varo] developed the image of the journey as a central metaphor in her work, as her characters emerged from the constraints of tradition, memory, fear, and isolation to seek power, creativity, spirituality, and magic.”4 As a student of esoteric doctrines and cutting-edge psychology, Varo was interested in the idea of metaphysical voyages into unseen realms and other dimensions. For her, the most profound journeys occurred in the mind itself, between different levels of consciousness or aspects of oneself. She sought to represent such spiritual quests or personal hero’s journeys in her artwork. In Estudio para Trasmundo, the journey is both literal and metaphorical, the latter perhaps captured best by the preeminent poet Octavio Paz, Varo’s close friend: “Sea voyages within a precious stone.”5

ON ESTUDIO PARA TRASMUNDO 11

Ruptura 1955 — Oil on Masonite

37 1/2 x 23 1/2 inches (95 x 60 cm)

A “rupture” is defined as “an instance of breaking or bursting suddenly and completely” and, alternately, as “a breach of a harmonious relationship.”6 Both definitions are fitting for the haunting Ruptura (1955), in which the central figure appears to be breaking with or fleeing the building and figures in the background. This cloaked figure (androgynous, like many of Varo’s protagonists) descends a staircase, heading away from a building that appears almost flat, more like a facade than a structure. A mysterious wind emanates from the building, causing crumpled papers to fly out the door, left slightly ajar, and white curtains to flutter from the six arched windows. From each of these windows, a hooded face peers down at the central figure, silently and attentively watching her depart. Despite this scrutiny, her face remains impassive, if slightly wary. She appears self-assured in her decision to leave but also aware that she is being observed. She pulls her cloak around her in a protective gesture while continuing her march down the staircase, not breaking her stride. The stairs are enclosed by steep walls covered with vegetation and snail forms, in stark contrast to the barren trees that loom in the background. Growth versus decay, action versus observation, confinement versus liberation: Ruptura is a play of dramatic oppositions.

Several scholars have offered interpretations of the work’s title. Natalya Lusty refers to an “epistemological rupture,” arguing that Varo’s central hooded figure is “[abandoning] the path to traditional, institutional knowledge, seeking instead a kind of ontological and epistemological freedom in the flight from the claustrophobic walls of mimetic and uniform learning.”7 Janet Kaplan writes that the walls jutting dramatically from the building “suggest constriction and confinement.” She reads the titular “rupture” as a reflection of the “break that [Varo] had found it necessary to make with the institutions and traditions of her past.”8 Kaplan views the building as reminiscent of traditional Spanish architecture and the figure’s hooded cloak as a reference to the dress seen in Romanesque Catalan frescoes, which Varo would have known. In this interpretation, the strictures of conservative Spain, of the Old World, of Varo’s childhood, of familial expectation, of traditional ideas about womanhood and marriage, together create a suffocating space that entraps the central figure, making her escape even more intrepid and perhaps necessary. For the doubly exiled Varo, this break with the past was also literal. Forced to flee the Spanish Civil War and then World War II, she landed in Mexico City. Varo lived the experience of rupture.

A contrasting interpretation suggested by the art historian Tere Arcq casts the painting as a drama between the central figure and herself. Arcq notes that the faces in the windows, with their distinctive pointy chins and large almond-shaped eyes, look identical to that of the central figure. “They represent the multiple I’s that inhabit a person,” she writes, adding a psychoanalytic dimension to the work.9 In this reading, the woman is walking away from different aspects or versions of herself, perhaps parts of her identity that no longer suit or serve her. In this case, the freedom she seeks is more metaphorical and metaphysical, though not necessarily less fraught or perilous.

All these readings of the painting view the narrative action in Ruptura as a quest for some form of liberation. Whether she is breaking from the past or shedding psychological baggage, the central figure desires her freedom and is literally taking steps to achieve it.

ON RUPTURA 17

Catedral vegetal 1957 — Oil on canvas

1/2 x 17 3/4 inches (75 x 45 cm)

A woman is spirited away in a boat-caravan, whose prow assumes the form of a glowing phoenix-like creature with a mast and billowing sails attached to its head and torso. From inside the vehicle, the woman and her shadowy double peer out. Her mien is impassive and inscrutable. However marvelous this glowing avian vehicle and its passenger may be, they are not the focal point of Catedral vegetal (1957). It is the setting of this voyage that takes primacy in Varo’s composition: a forest-cum-cathedral whose canopy resembles Gothic arches and ribbed vaults, held aloft by impossibly slender trunk-pillar forms. The woman travels through this sylvan sanctuary, her glowing carriage the only source of light.

Catedral vegetal (“vegetal cathedral”) epitomizes Varo’s fascination with architecture. The daughter of a hydraulic engineer, she grew up surrounded by spatial renderings. The architectonic awareness she internalized is reflected in her artwork. Several scholars have noted the important role of architecture in her compositions.10 Varo uses architecture as both the spatial armature in which her narrative scenes unfold, and the psychological and metaphysical infrastructure that creates and enhances dramatic tension and sets the emotional tone of a work. Catedral vegetal exemplifies her use of Romanesque- and Gothic-inspired architecture in her paintings. More generally, it speaks of the importance of medieval visual culture in the pictorial universe that she constructed.

The architectural space of Catedral vegetal resembles those of the interiors of the Cathedral of Barcelona (also known as the Cathedral of the Holy Cross and Saint Eulalia) and Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, both of which Varo knew as a young adult in Barcelona and Paris. Her painting mimics the ogival arches and long, attenuated lines of these Gothic cathedrals and transforms their human-made structures into their natural equivalents. Whether she is alluding to the church-like character of a forest or to the influence of vegetal forms on medieval architecture is uncertain. She compares without judging or assessing value. Instead, she challenges and expands her viewers’ way of experiencing the world. The next time they enter a cathedral, they may reflect on how its fluted pillars resemble soaring tree trunks; the next time they wander in a forest, they may marvel at the sacred quality of its arboreal spaces.

ON CATEDRAL VEGETAL 23

The art of levitation: the loss of gravity, the loss of seriousness. Remedios laughs, but her laughter echoes in another world.

—OCTAVIO PAZ / “REMEDIOS VARO’S APPEARANCES AND DISAPPEARANCES” / 1966

Bruja que va al Sabath

1957 — Mixed media on paper 21 1/2 x 12 1/2 inches (55 x 32 cm)

Bruja que va al Sabath (1957) is startling for its simplicity (it’s a rare example of a work by Varo without a setting or background of any kind) and its directness. The central and only figure in the painting, the titular bruja, or witch, stares directly at the viewer. Her unflinching gaze projects a serene confidence, the sort that is borne out of knowledge of and command over one’s innate power. The witch is cloaked in cascades of red hair, a mane so long and lush that it serves as a sort of mantle sheathing her body. On her left hand perches a feathered creature, a hybrid bird who bears a remarkable likeness to the witch herself.11 Perhaps it is her familiar, that is, her supernatural companion or attendant. The two appear to be transforming into each other, the witch becoming more bird-like, and the bird-familiar more woman-like, through their intimate contact. This connection is reinforced by the elaborate tail plumage of the bird-familiar, which extends into the dark abyss at the center of the witch’s chest, suggesting a comingling of their beings and powers.12 In her right hand, the witch carries a crystal-like object, whose prismatic facets emit shards of glowing yellow light, alluding to the witch’s power. She is, after all, no ordinary woman.

The subject matter of Bruja speaks to Varo’s study of mystic practices and esoteric belief systems. She and her close friend and fellow artist, Leonora Carrington, were fascinated by magic and witchcraft, as both historical phenomena and living practices. Living in Mexico contributed to their interest. They frequented the Mercado Sonora in Mexico City, famed for its vendors of esoterica and herbs used in traditional brujería 13 Varo and Carrington’s shared interest and influence are reflected in the stripped-down palette of Bruja. Varo’s black, white, and red palette (with minimal accents of yellow and blue) was adopted by Carrington in works like Evening Conference (1949) and Necromancer (1950), among others. These three colors are singularly significant in esoteric practices like alchemy: black-and-white symbolize cosmic duality and the alchemical union of opposites, and red is the color of alchemical transformation.14

The title of the work, Bruja que va al Sabath, translates as “witch going to the Sabbath.” The witches’ sabbath was purported to be a nocturnal gathering of witches to perform clandestine rituals and rites. The phrase “witches’ sabbath” was popularized in 15th century Europe. Associated with the rise of wiccaphobia and the subsequent persecution of (predominantly) women accused of witchcraft, the concept of the witches’ sabbath has intrigued artists for centuries, from Hans Baldung Grien to John William Waterhouse to Francisco Goya. Goya was a major influence on Varo. As a young art student at the Academia de San Fernando, she frequented the Prado Museum, where she studied his work.15 Although she shared Goya’s fascination with the witches’ sabbath, her treatment of the subject differs from that of her fellow Spaniard. The ghoulishness of Goya’s witches is absent in Varo’s interpretation. Her solitary witch figure is proud and self-possessed, without the derogatory stigma historically associated with witches. In fact, Varo’s Bruja bears a remarkable resemblance to the artist herself. Her shock of red hair, heart-shaped face, and almond eyes are characteristic of the pseudo self-portraits that appear in many of Varo’s paintings.16 By painting Bruja in her own image, Varo elides any distance between herself as artist and her supernatural subject; she also asserts her own magical powers or, perhaps, the magic inherent in the act of artistic creation.

ON BRUJA QUE

VA AL SABATH

Apártalos que voy de paso

1959 —

Gouache on bristol board

20 x 15 inches

(51 x 38 cm)

Forms seek their own form, form seeks its own dissolution.17

—Octavio Paz / “Remedios Varo’s Appearances and Disappearances” / 1966

The title, Apártalos que voy de paso, takes the form of a command: “Take them away, I’m passing through,” declares the central female figure. Shrouded in mist and clouds, cloaked in an ethereal, glowing gown, she passes through a woodland area, parting the clouds as she moves. A mood of silence pervades the composition; the only sound conveyed is that of the rain quietly falling around the woman. She seems unperturbed by the shower that envelops her, almost as if she had generated the downpour like one of the Hyades, the Greek nymphs who bring rain. She looks over her shoulder at a figure who is following her, whose stocking-clad feet are visible beneath the mist. Is the central figure attempting to flee or anticipating an arrival? Remedios Varo provides no clear answer, imbuing the composition with her characteristic feeling of open-ended ambiguity.

Apártalos shares with several Varo works—like Cazadora de astros (La luna aprisionada) (1956), Rompiendo el círculo vicioso (1962), and Aurora (1962)—a central figure who seems to be a celestial being or elemental force personified. In these paintings, the artist employs a limited palette of muted blues and grays, which give her central figures an otherworldly appearance. In Apártalos, this celestial aura is amplified by the lunar shape traveling by her side, like a trusted companion or cosmic familiar. In several works, Varo pictures the moon in a manner that connects it to both a female figure and a spiritual breakthrough. As Janet Kaplan states, “Varied legendary traditions link the moon with the realm of women’s powers and by associating this moment of psychic awakening with the lunar crescent … Varo presents this as essentially a female quest.”18 She goes on to note:

This sense of a female vision pervades Varo’s work. It informs her choice of symbols … and her depiction of the figures who experience psychic awakening as specifically female. Women are central to these compositions, and Varo makes their experience paramount, reflecting the personal quest for awareness that she herself has undertaken.19

Apártalos stands out among Varo’s paintings for her atmospheric handling of paint for the central figure, foreground, and background. Abandoning the tight, controlled brushstrokes typical of her work, Varo allows the paint drip and pool so that its liquid quality defines the structure and mood of the artwork. The central figure and the paint that constitutes her form float effortlessly on the surface of the canvas, embarking on a journey that will take them to unseen and unknown realms.

ON APÁRTALOS QUE VOY DE PASO

Encuentro

1959 —

Oil on canvas

15 3/4 x 11 3/4 inches (40 x 30 cm)

This poor woman, full of curiosity and expectation as she opened the little coffer, encounters her own self; in the background, on the shelves, there are more little coffers, and who knows whether on opening them she will find something new.20

—Remedios Varo, on Encuentro / 1959

The encounter, or encuentro, is a motif that runs throughout Varo’s work. In fact, she used the title Encuentro for three of her paintings, signaling its significance to her. The idea of the encounter—be it between two beings, with oneself (or selves), or occurring on the celestial plane—was something that fascinated the artist. Varo delighted in unexpected and often staged scenes in which the figure(s) are in the midst of some uncanny experience, like the central figure in Encuentro (1959), who opens a box to find her face staring back at her. The watery blue cloth that envelopes her extends into the box and surrounds her doubled visage, creating an additional material point of connection between the figures. The woman’s calm, unruffled demeanor belies the startling nature of the experience. As Varo points out in the quotation, the background of the painting includes shelves on which several similar boxes rest. They are unadorned and seemingly uninteresting. Yet, tantalizingly, they suggest that more surprise encounters may be waiting inside. This sort of narrative—filled with enigma and the potential for revelation—typifies Varo’s compositions, ensnaring the viewer in a game of pictorial cat-and-mouse.

The idea of the self as multiplicitous rather than unified runs throughout Varo’s work—in Visita al pasado (1957) and Mujer saliendo del psicoanalista (1960), for example. It stems from her fascination with psychological exploration and, specifically, with the work of Carl Jung. In Encuentro, Varo pictures a meeting between different selves, or to borrow from Jung, between different archetypes that make up an individual. The recognition that one is not a unified subject but is comprised of a myriad of selves (in Jung’s theorizing: the persona, the shadow, the anima or animus, and the self) is visualized in Encuentro. The painting pictorializes a revelatory encounter between two archetypal aspects of the subject, an important step in the process of individuation or the merging of one’s consciousnesses.

The fact that this metaphysical and psychological experience occurs in a domestic setting links Encuentro to several other paintings by Varo: Visita inesperada (1958), Presencia inquietante (1959), and Mimetismo (1960), to name a few. She frequently stages interiorized dramas in enclosed spaces, using the setting to reinforce the thematic content and heighten the intimate nature of the experience. Revelations need not be public to be profound, and the most spectacular and unexpected experiences can occur between individuals and themselves in the quiet of their own homes.

ON ENCUENTRO 43

Constructores de instrumentos musicales

1961 —

Collage and gouache on cardboard

8 3/4 x 5 1/2 inches (22 x 14 cm)

Remedios Varo is best known for her paintings. The vast majority of her works are paintings (except for her preparatory sketches and drawings, of which there are many), but she turned to the medium of collage at several moments throughout her career. Many of her earliest works from her days as a young artist in Barcelona are experiments in uniting disparate imagery into a single composition in collage-like fashion. In July 1935, she created several exquisite corpses in collaboration with the artists Marcel Jean, Óscar Domínguez, and Esteban Francés, and Varo’s earliest collages grew out of these Surrealist-inspired experiments.21 That same year, 1935, she made her first collages, including La lección de anatomía and Nada temáis, señora, and Catálogo de sombras. It would be over two decades until Varo returned to the medium in 1957, with Una reunión tranquila and Ne me parlez jamais de cet homme!. Both of these mine printed matter from the 19th century to create fantastical scenes of polite society run amok. Four years later, Varo again returned to the medium, creating a collage unique in her oeuvre for its ovoid shape and its use of a work by a known artist (as opposed to an image from a popular print): Constructores de instrumentos musicales (1961).

The base image in Constructores de instrumentos musicales is from a woodcut by the German Renaissance master Albrecht Dürer, The Draughtsman of the Lute (n.d.). This woodcut is one of two by Dürer in which he visually articulates his technique for one-point (or linear) perspective, a compositional innovation pioneered during the Renaissance. In Dürer’s print, the artist, crouched on the right, and an apprentice or studio assistant use a window-like framing device and a series of wooden rods and lengths of string to assist in drafting a lute, a challenging subject to render in perspective given its curvilinear form. In Varo’s collage, a large butterfly form supplants the head and neck of the assistant, turning him into a hybrid human-insect. By adding another piece of printed matter—an image of a distant landscape with a meandering river and a hot air balloon hovering at the horizon—Varo transforms Dürer’s interior into a landscape. Using a dark, charcoal gray gouache, she frames and unites the two images in swirling plumes of smoke-like wash.

A collage is, at its core, an encounter. It is the meeting of two or more image worlds in a single composition, often with a shocking or dissociative effect. The juxtaposition of two or more images dislocates the original subject matter and unleashes a chain of associations that spiral into new realms of meaning. Varo’s collages—Constructores is a key example—are rooted in her formative years in the 1930s, when she was deeply influenced by and in conversation with Surrealism. They also provide a window into her delight in bringing together disparate forms and visual vocabularies in her paintings. She employed collage as a mindset, if not a medium or method, creating images in which different worlds and beings collide and converge into something new and unexpected.

CONSTRUCTORES DE INSTRUMENTOS MUSICALES

Niño y mariposa (Niño triste)

1961 — Oil on Masonite

20 7/8 x 11 3/4 inches (53 x 30 cm)

In Niño y mariposa (Niño triste) (1961) Varo depicts a young man walking through an alley in a medieval-like architectural setting. He is wearing a green suit that seems to be covered with moss. This may refer to the Western association of green with spring rituals for youth or to the green garments worn during May 1st festivities associated with fertility and courtly love.22 An immense black and brown butterfly, finely painted, hovers above the young man’s head.

Niño y mariposa is a symbolic portrait of Xabier Lizarraga, the son of her first husband, Gerardo Lizarraga. Xabier had a keen interest in art and, seeing that he was truly gifted, Varo became his mentor. She accorded him a special privilege: he was one of the few people allowed to enter her studio while she was working. She often worried about Xabier, who at the time she painted Niño y mariposa, was about thirteen years old. She told him that sometimes he looked melancholic as if he had a black butterfly over him.23

Varo had always been afraid of insects, butterflies among them. Benjamin Péret, the Surrealist poet and writer who became her partner in 1936, recalls a vision he had during his brief imprisonment in the French city of Rennes. A charming fairy—representing Varo—was gracefully throwing butterflies upwards with her hands. In his writings, he recalled this day at the Gare Montparnasse when he was boarding a train toward the prison: “all the black ideas,” “the black butterflies” that haunted him, disappeared with the sight of his beloved fairy. He often joked with her: “If we ever go to Mexico, what will become of you? In tropical countries there are sometimes real clouds of butterflies in the countryside.”24 Péret was right. Not only are there thousands of butterfly species in Mexico, but also black butterflies are among the most important insects in pre-Hispanic mythology.

In pre-Hispanic Mexico, nature was considered sacred; animals and plants were sometimes adored as divinities. Mexico’s ancient cultures, especially those in Teotihuacán and Oaxaca, related the black butterfly, tlilpapalotl (tlilli, meaning “black,” and papalotl, “butterfly”) to the goddess Itzpapálotl, “the obsidian butterfly.” Varo’s close friend, the Mexican writer and poet Octavio Paz, dedicated an extraordinary poem, “Mariposa de obsidiana,” to that butterfly. There are multiple representations of this deity in pre-Hispanic codices and in accounts by Fray Bernardino de Sahagún, a 16th century Spanish Franciscan priest, of the cultural practices and natural history of Mexico.

The black butterfly is a nocturnal species (associated with Rothschildia orizaba) related to obsidian because of its color. For pre-Hispanic peoples, the color of its wings symbolized the night, and they believed it had the power to render people invisible and invincible. The black butterfly had two contradictory qualities: it represented both protection from evil and a malefic spirit.25 The goddess Itzpapálotl was also a mother goddess, a figure of protection. Perhaps with this painting Varo was trying to cast a magic spell to protect her dear boy from evil influences. She may have been simultaneously watching over Xabier and paying a posthumous homage to her beloved Benjamin Péret.

NIÑO Y MARIPOSA (NIÑO TRISTE)

Those that she rescued from chaos, from shadow, from contradiction, and that she made live in the magic atmosphere created by her vitality.”

—ROSARIO

CASTELLANOS / METAMORPHOSIS OF A SORCERESS: FOR REMEDIOS VARO / 1963

Banqueros en acción

1962

—

Oil on Masonite 24 x 27 1/2 inches (61 x 70 cm)

A woman crouches behind a stone wall, her ear pressed against the wall and her eyes peering furtively upward, trying to see but not be seen. On the other side of the wall, four men fly effortlessly and noiselessly through the evening air, like bats on a nocturnal outing. Three of the men look ahead while the fourth casts his gaze over his left shoulder, piercing the picture plane and engaging the viewer. Why is the woman hiding from these men? Why are they pursuing her? What is the nature of their relationship? Banqueros en acción (1962) by Remedios Varo offers more questions than answers.

The title of the work, which translates as “bankers in action,” implies that the quartet of men in black frock coats and top hats are bankers, deployed on some sort of financial mission. The contrast in sartorial stature between the woman, who wears a simple dress and shawl, and the men in formal attire suggests that the relationship between the two parties may be one of borrower and lenders. The idea of bankers flying around the city to take recourse on, perhaps, a lapsed payment manifests the dark, acerbic humor that infuses much of Varo’s work. The steely determination of the bankers to seek out the woman makes them less like gentlemen and more like predators hunting their prey and brings to mind the 21st century phrase “predatory lenders.”

In Banqueros, Varo offers viewers a mise-en-scène full of intrigue, one that gives them the sense of jumping into a narrative midstream. The scholar Tere Arcq suggests that Varo’s interest in detective novels, particularly those of Agatha Christie, may account for this painting’s “whodunit” element and unresolved mystery.26 The painting’s dramatic flair may also relate to Varo’s work for theatrical and ballet productions in the early 1940s. Her art exudes theatricality, from the shallow proscenium-like spaces in which she stages her compositions, to the dramatic and suspenseful moments she represents.

The narrative and psychological import of Varo’s use of architecture runs throughout her body of work. The architectural spaces she constructs instigate drama and set the mood in her paintings. In Banqueros en acción, Varo’s figures and the spaces they occupy create a tantalizing mystery, a humorous psychodrama, an unsolved riddle.

ON BANQUEROS EN ACCIÓN 58

Personally, I don’t believe I’m endowed with any special powers, but instead with an ability to see relationships of cause and effect quickly, and this beyond the ordinary limits of common logic.

—REMEDIOS VARO, LETTER TO MR. GARDNER

Naturaleza muerta resucitando

1963 —

Oil on canvas

43 1/4 x 31 1/2 inches (110 x 80 cm)

Naturaleza muerta resucitando (1963) is notable as one of the few compositions in Remedios Varo’s oeuvre devoid of human presence or figures. Instead, the central form is a large candlestick atop a circular table. Eight empty plates levitate around the lit candle, and a handful of fruits orbit and collide, leaving trails of cosmic dust in their wake. The candle functions as a sort of axis mundi: a gravitational center of this vegetal solar system and a cosmic source of energy that animates the inanimate.27 Tere Arcq notes that the work thematizes the duality of the organic and the inorganic, with live plants growing from dead wood, namely the floorboards at the feet of the table. Her reading plays off of the painting’s title, Naturaleza muerta resucitando, which translates literally as “dead nature reviving” (naturaleza muerta is the Spanish term for “still life”).28 Janet Kaplan, on the other hand, posits that the narrative arc of the painting relates to the big bang theory of the origin of the universe.29 Either interpretation highlights Varo’s meditation on the relationship between life and death, a prophetic and eerily fitting subject matter for an artist at the end of her life.

Varo’s only still life painting, Naturaleza muerta resucitando references the memento mori (Latin for “remember you must die”) tradition of still life, popularized in the 17th century. During that age of profound religiosity, memento mori paintings were intended as reminders of the fallibility of the flesh, artistic admonitions that life on earth is merely preparation for the afterlife. Raised in Catholic Spain, Varo was steeped in such teachings and painterly traditions. She was also fascinated by esoteric traditions and mystic teachings that suggest different models of the universe.30 Naturaleza muerta resucitando melds these strains of belief into what Kaplan calls a “cosmic resurrection” reinforced by the chapel-like architectural space.31 The art historian writes:

Thus enshrined, this mandalic still-life-as-solar-system offers the ultimate message of hope: that the possibilities of regeneration are limitless, that out of destruction can come new life and growth. For a woman who experienced the devastation of two wars and the dislocation of two exiles, it is a powerful testament to hope and to the future. In retrospect, Varo’s Still Life Reviving seems a prophetic form of preparation for the passage into death. By adapting the tradition of still life to her more cosmic purposes, she created an image that fulfilled the philosophical and spiritual principles so central to her thinking.32

With Naturaleza muerta resucitando, Varo left a message to the world before her passing: nothing is finite; life will always follow death; energy cannot be destroyed, only transformed. The painting is a testament to its own message, a living reminder of Varo’s virtuosity and vitality.

NATURALEZA MUERTA RESUCITANDO

NOTES

1 The fantastical tricycle resembles the vehicles in Transmisión ciclis con cristales (1943), Ruedas metafísicas (Bicicletas en café) (1944), and Funambulistas (La Funambulista) (1944), all created within a couple years of La torre Human-wheel hybrids feature in multiple works by the artist throughout her career—Au bonheur des dames (Au bonheur des citoyens) (1956), Caminos tortuosos (1957), and Homo Rodans (1959), among others—a testament to their central importance in her visual vocabulary.

2 Janet Kaplan, the art historian and author of the preeminent biography of Varo, positions La torre as Varo’s first “mature work” and views its creation as a key moment in the development of her signature style and narrative impulse. Janet A. Kaplan, Unexpected Journeys: The Art and Life of Remedios Varo (New York: Abbeville Press, 1988), pp. 109–11.

3 The most notable examples are Carta de tarot (1957), El malabarista o El juglar (1965), and Ermitaño (1955). Salomon Grimberg writes about Varo’s relationship to the tarot. See Salomon Grimberg, “Remedios Varo and the Juggler: Harmony, Balance, and Unity,” in Remedios Varo: Catálogo razonado, 4th ed., ed. Ricardo Ovalle (Mexico City: Ediciones Era, 2008), pp. 27-31.

4 Kaplan, Unexpected Journeys, pp. 147–8.

5 See Octavio Paz, “Remedios Varo’s Appearances and Disappearances,” (1966) in Octavio Paz, Alternating Current, trans. Helen R. Lane (New York: Viking Press, 1973), pp. 45–46.

6 Oxford English Pocket Dictionary, “rupture,” accessed Apr. 15, 2023, https://www.encyclopedia. com/medicine/diseas es-and-conditions/pathology/rup ture.

7 Natalya Frances Lusty, “Art, Science and Exploration: Rereading the Work of Remedios Varo,” Journal of Surrealism and the Americas 5, nos. 1–2 (2011): 71.

8 Kaplan, Unexpected Journeys, pp. 23–24.

9 Tere Arcq, “In Search of the Marvelous,” in Alberto Ruy Sánchez et al., Five Keys to the Secret World of Remedios Varo, ed. Margarita de Orellana, trans. Lorna Scott Fox, Richard Moszka, and Quentin Pope (Mexico City: Artes de México, 2008), p. 56.

10 Peter Engel writes at length about the influence of medieval architecture on Varo’s work. See Peter Engel, “Places of the Unconscious,” in Sánchez et al., Five Keys to the Secret World, pp. 93–109. He cites Catedral vegetal as an example of how Varo’s “pure delight in the power of architecture seems to be the point of the

painting” (94). Janet Kaplan also notes the importance of accurately described architectural settings in Varo’s work. See Kaplan, Unexpected Journeys, pp. 185–6, and, in reference to Catedral vegetal specifically, p. 188.

11 A similar woman and bird pairing appears in a 1950 boceto (sketch) by Varo titled Boceto para biombo (cat. no. 96) and a painting from the same year, Woman and Bird (cat. no. 99). See Remedios Varo, ed. Ricardo Ovalle, pp. 316, 317.

12 Teri Geis refers to this “black prismatic space” that Varo employed in many of her singlefigure paintings as an allusion to the fourth dimension. See Teri Geis, “In Search of the Invisible Thread,” in Gallery Wendi Norris, Indelible Fables (San Francisco: Gallery Wendi Norris, 2012), p. 16.

13 Susan Aberth writes of the importance of Mexico City’s mercados (markets) to both Remedios Varo and Leonora Carrington. See Susan L. Aberth, Leonora Carrington: Surrealism, Alchemy and Art (London: Lund Humphries, 2010), pp. 60–62.

14 “Daniel Zamani on Leonora Carrington’s Necromancer,” Museum Barberini, Potsdam, https://www.museum-barberini.de/ en/media thek/10255/daniel-zama ni-on-leonora-carrington-s-necro mancer, accessed Apr. 17, 2023.

15 Kaplan, Unexpected Journeys, 201–6. Francisco Goya depicted witches and witchcraft in multiple artworks, including Witches’ Flight (1798) and Witches’ Sabbath (The Great He-Goat) (1821–23).

16 Ibid, p. 147.

17 Octavio Paz, “Remedios Varo’s Appearances and Disappearances,” (1966) in Octavio Paz, Alternating Current, trans. Helen R. Lane (New York: Viking Press, 1973), pp. 45–46.

18 Kaplan, Unexpected Journeys, p. 166.

19 Ibid, pp. 166–167.

20 Remedios Varo, Remedios Varo: Letters, Dreams & Other Writings, ed. and trans. Margaret Carson (Cambridge, MA: Wakefield Press, 2018), p. 107.

21 The exquisite corpse, or cadavre exquis, is a Surrealist riff on a traditional parlor game in which participants construct an image or story by adding elements to a drawing or set of phrases without seeing what other participants have previously created.

22 Kassia St. Clair, Las vidas secretas del color (Barcelona: Ediciones Urano: 2017), pp. 209–10.

23 Xabier Lizarraga, interview by author, Apr. 5, 2021.

24 Benjamin Péret, “Introduction,” in Anthologie des mythes, légendes et contes populaires d´Amérique (Paris: Éditions Albin Michel, 1960), pp. 19–20. Translation by author.

25 Doris Heyden and Carolyn Baus Czitrom, “Los insectos el arte prehispánico,” en Artes de México 11 (Nov. 11, 1997), p. 28.

26 Tere Arcq, in Sólo lo maravilloso es bello. Surrealismo en diálogo Museum Boijmans van Beuningen - México, (Mexico City: Museo del Palacio de Bellas Artes, INBAL/ Fundación Jenkins, 2022), p. 135.

27 Peter Engel, “Places of the

Unconscious,” in Sánchez et al., Five Keys to the Secret World, p. 104.

28 Tere Arcq, “In Search of the Marvelous,” in Sánchez et al., Five Keys to the Secret World, p. 182.

29 Kaplan, Unexpected Journeys, p. 182.

30 Tere Arcq writes that the painting is a “symbolic self-portrait and a model of the universe that condenses most of the postulates proposed by both [G.I.] Gurdjieff and [P.D.] Ouspensky.” The Armenian-born Gurdjieff and Russian-born Ouspensky were mystics. Varo studied their teachings with avowed interest. See Arcq, “In Search of the Marvelous,” in Sánchez et al., Five Keys to the Secret World, p. 80.

31 Kaplan, Unexpected Journeys, p. 183. Tere Arcq also notes that the architecture is “multidimensional, resembling the interior of a cathedral, a sacred space.” See Arcq, “In Search of the Marvelous,” in Sánchez et al., Five Keys to the Secret World, p. 80.

32 Kaplan, Unexpected Journeys, p. 183.

La torre, 1947 Gouache on paper 6 ¾ x 10 ¼ in (17 x 26 cm)

SIGNATURE & INSCRIPTIONS

Dedicated and signed (l.l.): “Para Gene afectuosamente, Remedios”

PROVENANCE

Private Collection

Carmen Romano de López Portillo, Mexico Gene Gerzso, Mexico

SELECT EXHIBITIONS

La obra de Remedios Varo, Museo Nacional de Arte Moderno, Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico City, 1964, no. 94

SELECT LITERATURE

Fernández, Justino. Anales del Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas. Mexico: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1965, p. 104;

Callois, Roger, Juliana González, and Octavio Paz. Remedios Varo. Ediciones Era, 1966, reproduced in black-and-white p. 171;

Cowart, David. “Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49 and the Paintings of Remedios Varo,” Critique. Studies in Modern Fiction. United States, 1977, p. 22;

Cowart, David. “Surface and Void: Paintings in Varo and The Crying of Lot 49,” in Thomas Pynchon. The Art of Allusion. London and Amsterdam: Southern Illinois University Press, Cardbonale and Edwardsville, Feffer &

Simmons, 1980, p. 26;

Chadwick, Whitney. Women Arts and the Surrealist Movement. London: Thames and Hudson, 1985, p. 215, reproduced in black-andwhite p. 216;

Kaplan, Janet A. Unexpected Journeys: The Art and Life of Remedios Varo. New York: Abbeville Press, 1988, pp. 109-111, reproduced in blackand-white p. 110;

Calvo, Andrea Luquín. Remedios Varo: el espacio y el exilio. Alicante, Spain: Universidad de Alicante, 2008, reproduced in black-andwhite p. 229;

SELECT PERIODICALS

Morris, Brian. “El surrealismo extragaláctico de la pintora Remedios Varo,” Turia, cultural magazine, no. 21 and 22, Teruel, Spain, October 1992

Estudio para Trasmundo, c. 1955 Oil on canvas

16 ½ x 21 ¼ in (42 x 54 cm)

SIGNATURE & INSCRIPTIONS

Signed l.r. “R. Varo”

PROVENANCE

ARTWORK DETAILS

Private Collection

Carmen Romano de López Portillo, Mexico, acquired from artist

Ruptura, 1955

Oil on Masonite

37 ½ x 23 ½ in (95 x 60 cm)

SIGNATURE & INSCRIPTIONS

Signed l.r. “ R. Varo”

PROVENANCE

Private Collection, London Private Collection, Mexico Atila Camisa, Mexico

SELECT EXHIBITIONS

Remedios Varo en Galerías Diana, Galerías Diana, Mexico City, 1956, no. 6;

La obra de Remedios Varo, Museo Nacional de Arte Moderno, Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico City, 1964, no. 22, reproduced in blackand-white;

Obra de Remedios Varo 1913/1963, Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City, 1971, no. 18;

Remedios Varo 1908-1963, Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City, February 25 – June 5, 1994, no. 57, reproduced in color p. 46, and details p. 47;

Remedios Varo, Isetan Museum of Art, Tokyo, June 10 – 25, 1999; Denki-Bunka-Kaikan, Nagoya, July 27 – August 15, 1999; The Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura, October 21 – November 28, 1999;

The Magic of Remedios Varo, National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C., February 10 – May 29, 2000; Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum, Chicago, June 16 –August 20, 2000, reproduced in color p. 116

SELECT LITERATURE

Fernández, Justino. Anales del Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas. Mexico: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1957, p. 19;

Fernández, Justino. Anales del Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas. Mexico: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1965, p. 103;

González, Juliana. “Trasmundo de Remedios Varo,” in Remedios Varo, Era, 1966, p. 166;

Callois, Roger, Juliana González, and Octavio Paz. Remedios Varo. Ediciones Era, 1966, no. 10, reproduced in color;

Rodríguez Prampolini, Ida. “Las expresiones plásticas contemporáneas de México,” in Cuarenta siglos de plástica mexicana Arte moderno y contemporáneo. Herrero, Mexico, 1971, reproduced in color p. 216;

Fernández, Justino. Anales del Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas. Mexico: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1972, p. 122;

Jaguer, Edouard. Remedios Varo. Paris/Mexico: Filipacchi/Era, 1980, p. 48, reproduced in color p. 61;

Lauter, Estela. Women as Mythmakers. Poetry and Visual Art by Twentieth-Century Women Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984, pp. 88-89, 96;

Kaplan, Janet A. Unexpected Journeys: The Art and Life of Remedios Varo. New York: Abbeville Press, 1988, pp. 23-24, 149, 151, reproduced in color p. 23;

Kaplan, Janet A. “Remedios Varo y la iconografía de la vivencia femenina: el rechazo al padre,” in Remedos Varo, Madrid, 1988, p. 60;

Martín Martín, Fernando. “A una artista desconocido,” Remedios Varo. Madrid, 1988, p. 27;

Mexican Masters, CDS Gallery, New York, 1990, pp. 7, 49;

Varo, Beatriz. Remedios Varo: en el centro

de microcosmos. Madrid: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1990, reproduced in color p. 193;

Varo, Beatriz. “La trayectoria de Remedios Varo: una espiral ascendente,” in Remedios Varo. Arte y Literatura. Teruel, Spain, 1991, p. 61;

Calvo, Andrea Luquín. Remedios Varo: el espacio y el exilio. Alicante, Spain: Universidad de Alicante, 2008, reproduced in black-andwhite p. 48;

Ovalle, Ricardo, with Walter Gruen, Alberto Blanco, Teresa del Conde, Salomon Grimberg, Janet A. Kaplan, Luis-Martín Lozano, Alan J. Friedman, Juliana González. Remedios VaroCatálogo razonado. 4th edition. Ediciones Era, Mexico City, 2008, no. 132, reproduced in color p. 179;

Arcq, Tere, with Alberto Ruy Sánchez, Peter Engel, Jaime Moreno Villarreal, Janet Kaplan, Fariba Bogzaran, Sandra Lisci, and Walter Gruen. Five Keys to the Secret World of Remedios Varo. English and Spanish editions. Mexico: Artes de México, 2008, p. 56, reproduced in color p. 60;

Calvo, Andrea Luquín. Remedios Varo: el espacio y el exilio. Alicante, Spain: Universidad de Alicante, 2008, reproduced in black-andwhite p. 48;

Nonaka, Masayo. Remedios Varo: The Mexican Years. Mexico City: Editorial RM, 2012, reproduced in color p. 34;

Gil, José Antonio and Magnolia Rivera. Remedios Varo: el hilo invisible. Mexico City, Nuevo León: Siglo XXI Editores, Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León, 2015, reproduced in color p. 134

SELECT PERIODICALS

Anzures, Raffael. “Poesía, magia y surrealismo,” Cuadernos Médicos, Mexico City, December 1956, reproduced in color;

Crespo de la Serna, Jorge Juan. “Hechizo de Remedios Varo,” Novedades, México en la Cultura, Mexico City, May 27, 1956, reproduced

in black-and-white;

Crespo de la Serna, Jorge Juan. “El arte taumatúrgico de Remedios Varo,” Arquitectura, Mexico City, June 1956, reproduced in blackand-white;

Flores Guerrero, Raúl. “Poesía en la pintura de Remedios Varo,” Revista de la Universidad de México, Mexico City, June 1956, reproduced in black-and-white;

Gironella, Cecilia. “Remedios Varo, un mundo fantástico,” Siempre!, Mexico City, June 6, 1956, reproduced in color;

De Neuvillate, Alfonso. “En memoria de Remedios Varo,” Novedades, México en la Cultura, Mexico City, October 20, 1963;

Nelken, Margarita. “El embrujo de Remedios Varo,” Cuadernos de Bellas Artes, Mexico City, February 1963, reproduced in black-and-white;

Martínez, Carmen. “Remedios Varo à Mexico,” Chefs d’Oeuvres de l’Art, n. 73, Hachette, Paris, 1964, reproduced in black-and-white;

Godoy, Emma. “Las profundidades de Remedios Varo, sacerdotisa de la pintura,” Kena, Mexico City, August 15, 1965, reproduced in color;

Gómez Gleason, María Teresa. “Ruptura parcial,” Retablo, Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico City, 1966, reproduced in black-andwhite;

Bambi. “Remedios Varo,” Revista de Revistas, Mexico City, April 28, 1968, reproduced in black-and-white;

Suárez, Luis. “Remedios Varo y sus fantasmas entre lo etéreo y lo tangible,” Siempre! La Cultura en México, Mexico City, November 24, 1971, reproduced in color;

Santos Torroella, Rafael. “Remedios Varo,” El Noticiero Universal, Barcelona, Spain, February 16, 1972, reproduced in black-and-white;

Ostrosky, Jennie. “Texturas Remedios Varo: juego y fuego en el ojo del pájaro,” Excélsior, Mexico City, June 3, 1983;

Macluf, Lourdes. “El delicado onirismo de Remedios Varo,” Geografía Universal, Mexico City, March 1985, reproduced in color;

Art Vivant, n. 32, with texts by Edouard Jaguer, Janet A. Kaplan, and Remedios Varo, Tokyo, 1989, reproduced in color;

Morris, Brian. “El surrealismo extragaláctico de la pintora de Remedios Varo,” Turia, cultural magazine, n. 21 and 22, Teruel, Spain, October 1992

Catedral vegetal, 1957 Oil on canvas 29 ½ x 17 ¾ in (75 x 45 cm)

PROVENANCE

Private Collection, Mexico Raúl Martínez Ostos, Mexico Walter Gruen, Mexico Eugenio Villanueva, Mexico

SELECT EXHIBITIONS

La obra de Remedios Varo, Museo Nacional de Arte Moderno, Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico, 1964, no. 59;

Remedios Varo. Cinco llaves, Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City, 2008;

Surreal Friends: Leonora Carrington, Remedios Varo and Kati Horna, Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, England, June 19 – September 12, 2010, Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, September 28 – December 12, 2010;

Remedios Varo: Indelible Fables, Gallery Wendi Norris, San Francisco, CA, January 7 – February 25, 2012, no. 9, reproduced in color pp. 19, 37

SELECT LITERATURE

Fernández, Justino. Catálogos de las exposi-

ciones de arte, supplement for the Anales del Institute de Investigaciones Estéticas, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico, 1965, p. 104;

González, Juliana. “Trasmundo de Remedios Varo,” in Remedios Varo, Era, Mexico, 1966, p. 167;

Caillois, Roger. “Inventario de un mundo” (translated from French by José Emilio Pacheco), in Remedios Varo, Era, Mexico, 1966. Text by Roger Caillois, Juliana González and Octavio Paz, no. 39, reproduced in black-and-white;

Jaguer, Edouard. Remedios Varo. Paris/Mexico: Filipacchi/Era, 1980, reproduced in black-andwhite p. 20;

Kaplan, Janet A. Unexpected Journeys: The Art and Life of Remedios Varo, New York: Abbeville Press, 1988, p. 188, reproduced in color p. 189;

Martín Martín, Fernando. “A una artista desconocido,” Remedios Varo. Madrid, 1988, p. 24;

Calvo, Andrea Luquín. Remedios Varo: el espacio y el exilio. Alicante, Spain: Universidad de Alicante, 2008, reproduced in black-andwhite p. 248;

van Raay, Stefan, Joanna Moorhead, and Teresa Arcq. Surreal Friends: Leonora Carrington, Remedios Varo and Kati Horna. London: Lund Humphries in association with Pallant House Gallery, 2010, reproduced in color p. 51;

Gil, José Antonio and Magnolia Rivera. Remedios Varo: el hilo invisible. Mexico City, Nuevo León: Siglo XXI Editores, Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León, 2015, reproduced in color p. 56

SELECT PERIODICALS

Art Vivant, n. 32, with texts by Edouard Jaguer, Janet A. Kaplan and Remedios Varo, Tokyo, 1989, reproduced in black-and-white;

Morris, Brian. “El surrealismo extragaláctico de la pintora Remedios Varo,” Turia, cultural magazine, pp. 21 & 22, Teruel, Spain, October 1992

Bruja que va al Sabath, 1957 Mixed media on paper 21 ½ x 12 ½ in (55 x 32 cm)

SIGNATURE AND INSCRIPTIONS

Signed l.r. “ R. Varo”

PROVENANCE

Private Collection, Mexico

Enrique and Gabriela Portilla, Mexico Agustín Guevara Alas, Mexico

SELECT EXHIBITIONS

La obra de Remedios Varo, Museo Nacional de Arte Moderno, Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico City, 1964, not reproduced in catalogue;

Remedios Varo 1913/1963, Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City, 1983, no. 60;

Remedios Varo, Fundación Banco Exterior, Madrid, 1988; Museo de Monterrey, Mexico, 1989, no. 38, reproduced in color;

SELECT LITERATURE

Varo, Beatriz. Remedios Varo: en el centro del microcosmos. Madrid: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1990, reproduced in color p. 200;

Varo, Beatriz. “La trayectoria de Remedios Varo: una espiral ascendente,” in Remedios Varo. Arte y Literatura. Teruel, Spain, 1991, p. 60;

Diego, Estrella de. Remedios Varo. Madrid: Fundación MAPFRE, Instituto de Cultura, 2007, reproduced in color p. 46;

Calvo, Andrea Luquín. Remedios Varo: el espacio y el exilio. Alicante, Spain: Universidad de Alicante, 2008, reproduced in black-andwhite p. 381;

Gil, José Antonio and Magnolia Rivera. Remedios Varo: el hilo invisible. Mexico City, Nuevo León: Siglo XXI Editores, Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León, 2015, detail reproduced in color p. 126;

Rasmussen, Naja. “‘I Can Be Anything.’ Humour, Witchcraft and Ecocriticism in Leonora Carrington,” Leonora Carrington: Revelation. Spain: RM/Fundación MAPFRE, 2023, fig. 8, p. 68

SELECT PERIODICALS

Rodríguez Prampolini, Ida. “Recuerdo de Remedios Varo,” Memoranda, SeptemberOctober 1990, reproduced in black-and-white;

Andrade, Lourdes. “Los tiempos maravillosos y aquellos que los habitaron,” La Jornada Semanal, March 29, 1992, reproduced in black-and-white

Apártalos que voy de paso, 1959

Gouache on bristol board

20 x 15 in (51 x 38 cm)

PROVENANCE

Private Collection, Mexico

Silvia Pinal, Mexico

Silvia Pasquel, Mexico

Miguel Salas Jr., Mexico

Miguel Salas Anzures, Mexico

SELECT EXHIBITIONS

Remedios Varo 1908-1963, Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City, February 25 – June 5, 1994, no. 106;

SELECT LITERATURE

Encuentro, 1959

Oil on canvas

15 ¾ x 11 ¾ in (40 x 30 cm)

SIGNATURE AND INSCRIPTIONS

Signed l.l. “R. VARO”

PROVENANCE

Private Collection, Mexico Carolina Amor de Fournier, Mexico Raoul Fournier Villada, Mexico

SELECT EXHIBITIONS

La obra de Remedios Varo, Museo Nacional de Arte Moderno, Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico City, 1964, no. 32, reproduced in black-and-white;

Obra de Remedios Varo 1913/1963, Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City, 1971, no. 29;

Lo Femenino y lo Eterno, Oficinas Generales, Industrias Resistol, Mexico City, 1981;

Remedios Varo, 1913/1963, Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City, 1983, no. 17;

Consejos y Recetas de Remedios Varo, Museo Biblioteca Pape, Monclova, 1985, no. 17, reproduced in black-and-white;

Los Surrealistas en México, Museo Nacional de Arte, Mexico City; Museo de Monterrey, Mexico, 1986, no. 195;

Remedios Varo, Fundación Banco Exterior, Madrid, 1988; Museo de Monterrey, Mexico, 1989, no. 52, reproduced in color;

Remedios Varo 1908-1963, Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City, February 25 – June 5, 1994, no. 111;

Remedios Varo. Cinco llaves, Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City, 2008;

Sólo lo maravilloso es bello El surrealismo en diálogo. Museo Boijmans Van Beuningen – México, Museo del Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico City, 2022, reproduced in color p. 188

SELECT LITERATURE

Fernández, Justino. Anales del Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas. Mexico: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1965, p. 103;

Callois, Roger, Juliana González and Octavio Paz. Remedios Varo. Ediciones Era, 1966, no. 78, reproduced in color;

Fernández, Justino. Anales del Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas. Mexico: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1972, p. 122;

Somolinos Palencia, Jan. “Pintores surrealistas extranjeros,” El surrealismo en la Pintura Mexicana. Mexico: Arte Ediciones, 1973, reproduced in black-and-white pp. 74, 75;

Cox, Sue. Female Psychology. The Emerging Self. Science Research Associates. Chicago, 1976, reproduced in black-and-white p. 324;

Cowart, David. “Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49 and the Paintings of Remedios Varo,” Critique. Studies in Modern Fiction. United States, 1977, p. 24;

Baron, Jacques. Antologie Plastique du Surréalisme. Paris: Filipacchi, 1980, reproduced in color p. 220;

Cowart, David. “Surface and Void: Paintings in Varo and The Crying of Lot 49,” Thomas Pynchon. The Art of Allusion. Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale and Edwardsville, Feffer & Simmons, London and Amsterdam, 1980, p. 28;

Jaguer, Edouard. Remedios Varo. Paris/Mexico: Filipacchi/Era, 1980, p. 48, reproduced in color p. 49;

Lauter, Estela. Women as Mythmakers. Poetry and Visual Art by Twentieth-Century Women.

Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984, p. 91;

Chadwick, Whitney. Women Arts and the Surrealist Movement. London: Thames and Hudson, 1985, p. 202;

Colville, Georgiana M.M. Beyond and Beneath the Mantle: On Thomas Pynchon’s, The Crying of Lot 49. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1988, p. 53, reproduced in color p. 119;

Kaplan, Janet A. Unexpected Journeys: The Art and Life of Remedios Varo. New York: Abbeville Press, 1988, p. 152, reproduced in black-andwhite p. 153;

Martín Martín, Fernando. “A una artista desconocido,” Remedios Varo. Madrid, 1988, p. 25;

Varo, Beatriz. Remedios Varo: en el centro de microcosmos. Fondo de Cultura Económica, Madrid, 1990, reproduced in black-and-white p. 95;

Morales Jiménez, Elena. Los universos mágicos de Remedios Varo e Isabel Allende. Fantasmas y espíritus. Spain: Ediciones Idea, 2006, reproduced in color p. 221;

Diego, Estrella de. Remedios Varo. Madrid: Fundación MAPFRE, Instituto de Cultura, 2007, reproduced in color p. 75;

Garcia, Catherine. Remedios Varo, peintre surréaliste? Création au féminin: hybridations et métamorphoses. Paris: L’Harmattan, col. Histoires et idées des Arts, 2007, reproduced in black-and-white p. 51;

Calvo, Andrea Luquín. Remedios Varo: el espacio y el exilio. Alicante, Spain: Universidad de Alicante, 2008, reproduced in black-andwhite p. 264;

color p. 233; discussed in essay by Teresa del Conde, “Psychoanalysts and Remedios,” p. 26;

Figuereda, Pere Oñpo. L’Angles de Remedios Varo. Spain: Edita Ajuntament d’Anglès, 2009, reproduced in black-and-white p. 98;

Nonaka, Masayo. Remedios Varo: The Mexican Years. Spain: Ediciones RM, 2012, reproduced in color p. 77;

Remedios Varo: Letters, Dreams & Other Writings. Translated by Margaret Carson. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Wakefield Press, 2018, reproduced in color on cover

SELECT PERIODICALS

“El fenómeno de Remedios Varo,” Novedades Magazine, September 27, 1964, reproduced in black-and-white;

Lash, Vivian. “Remedios Varo: Beyond Surrealism,” Mexico City Times, September 6, 1964;

Bambi. “Remedios Varo,” Revista de Revistas, April 28, 1968, reproduced in color on cover;

Pardo, Regina. “Hablando con Remedios Varo,” Novedades, México en la Cultura, November 21, 1971;

Orenstein, Gloria. “Women of Surrealism,” The Feminist Art Journal, New York, Spring 1973, reproduced in black-and-white;

Huerta, Totina. “Remedios Varo, magia y poesía,” Comunidad, Universidad Iberoamericana, August 1975, reproduced in black-andwhite;

Orenstein, Gloria. “Art History and the Case for the Women of Surrealism,” The Journal of General Education, Pennsylvania State University Press, Philadelphia, Spring 1975;

Parrott, James. “The World of Remedios Varo. A Personal View,” Applegarts Follies, Ontario, 1975, reproduced in halftone;

“Continúa en exhibición la muestra de Reme -

dios Varo,” El Heraldo, October 1, 1983; López Chavira, Antonio. “Los ojos de Remedios. Vida = imaginación = vida,” Claudia, August 1983, reproduced in color;

Ostrosky, Jennie. “Texturas Remedios Varo: juego y fuego en el ojo del pájaro,” Excélsior, June 3, 1983;

Macluf, Lourdes. “El delicado onirismo de Remedios Varo,” Geografía Universal, March 1985, reproduced in color;

Robles, Martha. “Sueños en la torre. Remedios en Madrid,” Excélsior, November 18, 1988;

Art Vivant n. 32, with texts by Edouard Jaguer, Janet A. Kaplan and Remedios Varo, Tokyo, 1989, reproduced in color;

“El exilio español,” Omnia, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, December 1989, reproduced in color;

Ciencia, December 1991, reproduced in color on cover;

Morris, Brian. “El surrealismo extragaláctico de la pintora Remedios Varo,” Turia, cultural magazine, n. 21 and 22, Teruel, Spain, October 1992

Constructores de instrumentos musicales, 1961

Collage and gouache on cardboard

8 ¾ x 5 ½ in (22 x 14 cm)

With frame: 13 ⅕ x 10 in (33 ½ x 25 ½ cm)

PROVENANCE

Private Collection, Mexico

Agustín Guevara Alas, Mexico

Gift from the artist to Manuel Machín Gurría, Mexico

SELECT EXHIBITIONS

Remedios Varo, Museo de Monterrey, Mexico, 1989, not reproduced in catalogue;

Remedios Varo 1908-1963, Museo de Arte

Moderno, Mexico City, February 25 – June 5, 1994, no. 141, reproduced in black-and-white p. 21, with an incorrect label

SELECT LITERATURE

Niño y mariposa (Niño triste), 1961 Oil on Masonite 20 ⅞ x 11 ¾ in (53 x 30 cm)

SIGNATURE AND INSCRIPTIONS

Signed l.r. “R. VARO”

PROVENANCE

Private Collection, Mexico City Agustín Guevara Alas, Mexico Galería Juan Martín, Mexico

SELECT EXHIBITIONS

Óleos recientes de Remedios Varo, Galería Juan Martín, Mexico City, 1962;

Segundo Salón de la Plástica Femenina, Galerías Excélsior, Mexico City, 1962;

La obra de Remedios Varo, Museo Nacional de Arte Moderno, Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico City, 1964, no. 88;

Obra de Remedios Varo 1913/1963, Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City, 1971, no. 49;

Remedios Varo, 1913/1963, Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City, 1983, no. 56;

Remedios Varo, Fundación Banco Exterior, Madrid, 1988; Museo de Monterrey, Mexico, 1989, no. 64, reproduced in color;

Remedios Varo 1908-1963, Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City, February 25 – June 5, 1994, no. 146;

Remedios Varo, Isetan Museum of Art, Tokyo Shimbun, June 10 – 25, 1999; Denki-BunkaKaikan, Nagoya, July 27 – August 15, 1999; The Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura, October 21 - November 28, 1999;

The Magic of Remedios Varo, National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C., February 10 - May 29, 2000; Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum, Chicago, June 16 - August 20, 2000, reproduced in color p. 117

SELECT LITERATURE

Fernández, Justino. Anales del Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas. Mexico: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1965, p. 104;

Callois, Roger, Juliana González and Octavio Paz. Remedios Varo. Ediciones Era, 1966, no. 64, reproduced in color;

Fernández, Justino. Anales del Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas. Mexico: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1972, p. 123;

Jaguer, Edouard. Remedios Varo. Paris/Mexico: Filipacchi/Era, 1980, reproduced in color p. 57;

Diego, Estrella de. Remedios Varo. Madrid: Fundación MAPFRE, Instituto de Cultura, 2007, reproduced in color p. 95;

Gil, José Antonio and Magnolia Rivera. Remedios Varo: el hilo invisible. Mexico City, Nuevo León: Siglo XXI Editores, Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León, 2015, reproduced in color p. 128

SELECT PERIODICALS

Champourcin, Ernestina de. “La pintura alucinante y perfecta de Remedios Varo,” Gaceta Social de México, September 1964, reproduced in black-and-white;

“La pintura surrealista de Remedios Varo,” Siempre! La Cultura en México, December 21, 1983, reproduced in color;

Art Vivant n. 32, with texts by Edouard Jaguer, Janet A. Kaplan and Remedios Varo, Tokyo, 1989, reproduced in color;

Morris, Brian. “El surrealismo extragaláctico de la pintora de Remedios Varo,” Turia, cultural magazine, n. 21 and 22, Teruel, Spain, October 1992

Banqueros en acción, 1962 Oil on Masonite 24 x 27 ½ in (61 x 70 cm)

PROVENANCE

Private Collection, Mexico Walter Gruen, Mexico

SELECT EXHIBITIONS

La obra de Remedios Varo, Museo Nacional de Arte Moderno, Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico City, 1964, no. 53;

Obra de Remedios Varo 1913/1963, Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City, 1971, no. 33;

Remedios Varo 1913/1963, Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City, 1983, no. 40;

Consejos y Recetas de Remedios Varo, Museo Biblioteca Pape, Monclova, 1985 no. 19;

Remedios Varo, Fundación Banco Exterior, Madrid, 1988; Museo de Monterrey, Mexico, 1989, no. 72, reproduced in color;

Remedios Varo 1908-1963, Museo de Arte

Moderno, Mexico City, February 25 – June 5, 1994, no. 154, reproduced in color p. 85;

Remedios Varo, Isetan Museum of Art, Tokyo, June 10 – 25, 1999; Denki-Bunka-Kaikan, Nagoya, July 27 – August 15, 1999; The Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura, October 21 –November 28, 1999, no. 55, reproduced in color on cover;

Women Surrealists in Mexico, The Bunkamura Museum of Art, Tokyo, July 19 – September 7; Suntory Museum, Osaka, September 13 – October 19; Nagoya City Art Museum, Nagoya, November 1 – December 21, 2003; The Museum of Art, Kochi, January 4 – February 22, 2004, no. 53, reproduced in color;

Remedios Varo: Cinco llaves, Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City, May, 2008;

Sólo lo maravilloso es bello. Surrealismo en diálogo, Museo Boijmans Van Beuningen, México, Museo del Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico, June 3 – October 2, 2022, reproduced in catalogue p. 134

SELECT LITERATURE

Fernández, Justino. Catálogos de las exposiciones de arte, suplementos de los Anales del Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas. Mexico: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1965, p. 103;

Fernández, Justino. Catálogos de las exposiciones de arte, suplementos de los Anales del Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas. Mexico: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1972, p. 122;

Ovalle, Ricardo, with Walter Gruen, Alberto Blanco, Teresa del Conde, Salomon Grimberg, Janet A. Kaplan, Luis-Martín Lozano, Alan J. Friedman, Juliana González. Remedios Varo -

Catálogo razonado. 4th edition. Edicions Era, Mexico City, 2008, no. 335, reproduced in color p. 273

SELECT PERIODICALS

Bonet, Juan Manuel. “El retorno de Remedios Varo,” Diario 16, Guía Arte, Madrid, November 4, 1988, reproduced in color;

Rodríguez, Prampolini, Ida. “Recuerdo de Remedios Varo,” Memoranda, SeptemberOctober, 1990, reproduced in black-and-white

Naturaleza muerta resucitando, 1963

Oil on canvas

43 ¼ x 31 ½ in (110 x 80 cm)

SIGNATURE AND INSCRIPTIONS

Signed l.r. “R. Varo”

PROVENANCE

Private Collection, London Private Collection, Valencia Beatriz Varo

SELECT EXHIBITIONS

El Exilio Español en México, Palacio de Velázquez, Madrid, January 1983;

Remedios Varo, Fundación Banco Exterior, Madrid, 1988, no. 80, reproduced in color;

Remedios Varo. Arte y Literatura, Museo Provincial de Teruel, Teruel, Spain, 1991; Tomás de Lorenzana, Girona, Spain; and Torreón Fortea, Zaragoza, Spain, 1992, no. 43, reproduced in color;

Remedios Varo 1908-1963, Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City, February 25 – June 5, 1994, no. 170, reproduced in color p. 91;

Remedios Varo, Isetan Museum of Art, Tokyo, June 10 – 25, 1999; Denki-Bunka-Kaikan, Nagoya, July 27 – August 15, 1999; The Muse -

um of Modern Art, Kamakura, October 21 –November 28, 1999;

SELECT LITERATURE

La obra de Remedios Varo, Museo Nacional de Arte Moderno, Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico City, 1964, no. 8, reproduced in color on cover;

Fernández, Justino. Anales del Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas. Mexico: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1965, p. 102;

Callois, Roger, Juliana González and Octavio Paz. Remedios Varo. Ediciones Era, 1966, reproduced in color no. 1, detail of work no. 2;

Xirau, Ramón. “Remedios Varo,” Obra de Remedios Varo 1913/1963, Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City, 1971, unpaginated;

Fernández, Justino. Anales del Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas. Mexico: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1972, p. 119;

Celorio, Gonzalo. El surrealismo y lo real-maravilloso americano. SepSetentas, Mexico, 1976, p. 11, reproduced in color p. 12;

Jaguer, Edouard. Remedios Varo. Paris/Mexico: Filipacchi/Era, 1980, p. 24, reproduced in color p. 34;

Lauter, Estela. Women as Mythmakers. Poetry and Visual Art by Twentieth-Century Women. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984, pp. 85, 86, 87, reproduced in black-and-white pp. 94, 97;

Chadwick, Whitney. Women Artists and the Surrealist Movement. London: Thames and Hudson, 1985, reproduced in black-and-white p. 193;

Engel, Peter. “Remedios Varo: Science into Art,” Science in Surrealism: The Art of Remedios Varo. New York: New York Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Sciences, 1986, p. 14, reproduced in color p. 15;

Paz, Octavio. México en la obra de Octavio Paz. Vol. 3: Los privilegios de la vista. Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1987, lám, reproduced in color no. 46;

19th São Paulo Biennale. São Paulo: Fundação Bienal de São Paulo, 1987, p. 287, no. 15;

Tibol, Raquel. “Remedios Varo,” 19th São Paulo Biennale. São Paulo: Fundação Bienal de São Paulo, 1987, p. 287;

Kaplan, Janet A. Unexpected Journeys: The Art and Life of Remedios Varo. New York: Abbeville Press, 1988, pp. 182, 183, reproduced in color p. 183;

Martín Martín, Fernando. “A una artista desconocido,” Remedios Varo. Madrid, 1988, p. 30;

Varo, Beatriz. “Remedios en el recuerdo,” Remedios Varo, Madrid, 1988, p. 72;

Yearbook of Science and the Future. Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, 1988, reproduced in color p. 24;

Andrade, Lourdes. Remedios Varo y la Alquimia. Bachelor thesis, Universidad Iberoamericana, Mexico, 1990, pp. 27, 89;

Varo, Beatriz. Remedios Varo: en el centro del microcosmos. Madrid: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1990, reproduced on cover, reproduced in color p. 181;

Guigon, Emmanuel. “Imágenes y textos en la obra de Remedios Varo,” Remedios Varo. Arte y Literatura. Teruel, Spain, 1991, p. 19;

Varo, Beatriz. “La trayectoria de Remedios Varo: una espiral ascendente,” Remedios Varo. Arte y Literatura. Teruel, Spain, 1991, p. 62;

World Masterpieces. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall/Simon & Schuster, 1991, reproduced in color p. 1241;

Jung, Carl Gustav. Psychology and the Occult. New Jersey: Princeton University/Bollingen Press, 1992, reproduced in color on cover;

Lisci Garmilla, Andrés. Suma Endocrinológica. Mexico: Universidad La Salle/Limusa, 1992, reproduced in black-and-white p. 175;

Diego, Estrella de. Remedios Varo. Madrid: Fundación MAPFRE, Instituto de Cultura, 2007, reproduced in color, p. 115;

Calvo, Andrea Luquín. Remedios Varo: el espacio y el exilio. Alicante, Spain: Universidad de Alicante, 2008, reproduced in black-andwhite p. 152;

Fort, Ilene Susan and Tere Arcq, eds. In Wonderland: The Surrealist Adventures of Women Artists in Mexico and the United States. New York: Prestel Publishing, DelMonico Books, 2012, reproduced in color p. 80;

Nonaka, Masayo. Remedios Varo: The Mexican Years. Mexico City: Editorial RM, 2012, reproduced in color p. 109;

Gil, José Antonio and Magnolia Rivera. Remedios Varo: el hilo invisible. Mexico City, Nuevo León: Siglo XXI Editores, Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León, 2015, reproduced in color p. 168;

Subelytė, Gražina and Daniel Zamani. Surrealism and Magic: Enchanted Modernity. Munich, London, New York: Prestel Publishing, 2022, reproduced in color p. 77

SELECT PERIODICALS

Bayona, Pedro. “Pintura para verse de cerca,” Ovaciones, Mexico City, August 23, 1964;

Breton, André. La Brêche, Paris, December 1964;

Cueto, Mireya. “Remedios Varo,” Revista de la Universidad de México, December 1964;

Nelken, Margarita. “Remedios Varo,” Excélsior, Diorama de la Cultura. December 18, 1966;

Bambi. “Remedios Varo,” Revista de Revistas, April 28, 1968, reproduced in color;

Gruen, Walter. “Remedios Varo: visión perdurable de una artista,” Siempre!, La Cultura en México, Mexico City, November 24, 1971;

Pardo, Regina. “Hablando con Remedios Varo,” Novedades, México en la Cultura, Mexico City, November 21, 1971, reproduced in color;

Kaplan, Janet. “Remedios Varo: Voyages and Visions,” Women’s Art Journal, Knoxville, TN, Autumn, 1980;

Ávila, Lorenzo Rafael. “Remedios Varo, la clarividencia alquímica,” Uno Más Uno, Sábado, Mexico City, April 14, 1984;

Macluf, Lourdes, “El delicado onirismo de Remedios Varo,” Geografía Universal, Mexico City, March 1985, reproduced in color;

Engel, Peter. “Remedios Varo, Brief Life of a Metaphysical Painter.” Harvard Magazine,

Cambridge, MA, May/June 1986, reproduced in color;

Engel, Peter. “The Art of Remedios Varo. A Struggle Between the Scientific and the Sacred,” Technology Review, Cambridge, MA, October 1986, reproduced in color;

Tibol, Raquel. “Remedios Varo con los científicos en Nueva York y Washington,” Proceso, Mexico City, May 19, 1986;

Kaplan, Janet A. “Remedios Varo. An Art Essay,” Feminist Studies. College Park, MD, Spring, 1987, reproduced in black-and-white;

Planetary Report, Pasadena, CA, September/ October 1987, reproduced in color on the back cover;

Sesín, Saide. “Remedios Varo descubrió la vida de cada cosa y la pintó con particular visión,” Uno Más Uno, Mexico City, February 26, 1987;

Engel, Peter. “The Traveller, the Surrealist Whose Works are Seldom Seen,” Connoisseur Magazine, New York, NY, February 1988, reproduced in color;

Morton, Brian. “Unexpected Journeys. The Art and Life of Remedios Varo,” The Times, Higher Education Supplement, London, UK, October 28, 1988;

Art Vivant, n. 32, with texts by Edouard Jaguer, Janet A. Kaplan and Remedios Varo, Tokyo, 1989, reproduced in color;

Duran, Gloria. “The Antipodes of Surrealism: Salvador Dalí and Remedios Varo,” Symposium, University of Connecticut, Waterbury, CT, Winter 1989, reproduced in black-and-white;

Galindo, Carlos Blas. “Remedios Varo, su arte y su vida,” El Financiero, Mexico City, March 6, 1990, reproduced in black-and-white;

Cirici, Juan. “El descubrimiento de Remedios Varo,” Diario de Cádiz, Cultura, Cádiz, Spain, 83

May 6, 1990, detail reproduced in black-andwhite;

Beltrán, Jerónimo. “Remedios Varo en el Museo Provincial,” Diario de Teruel, Teruel, Spain, November 14, 1991;

Blasco, José Joaquín. “Remedios Varo, el surrealismo francés en el exilio mejicano,” Nuevo Diario, Teruel, Spain, November 15, 1991;

Murria, Alicia. “III Jornadas Surrealistas en la ciudad de Teruel,” Diario 16, Guía Zaragoza, Zaragoza, Spain, October 25, 1991, reproduced in black-and-white;

Murria, Alicia. “Remedios Varo, ‘... El Surrealismo la reclama entera,’” Diario 16, Zaragoza, Spain, November 8, 1991;

A.A. “Remedios Varo,” El Heraldo de Aragón, Zaragoza, Spain, February 20, 1992;

Falgàs, Jordi. “La Casa de Cultura de Girona, expone la obra pictórica de Remedios Varo,” El Punt, Girona, Spain, January 15, 1992;

Fontova, Rosario. “Girona descubre a la artista surrealista Remedios Varo,” El Periódico de Aragón, Zaragoza, Spain, January 17, 1992, reproduced in black-and-white;

García Guatas, Manuel. “El surrealismo de Remedios Varo,” Diario 16, Zaragoza, Spain, February 15, 1992;

Ibarz, Mercè. “La iconografia de les vivències feminines,” Diari de Barcelona, Barcelona, December 4, 1988;

Morris, Brian. “El surrealismo extragaláctico

de la pintora de Remedios Varo,” Turia, cultural magazine, n. 21 and 22, Teruel, Spain, October 1992;

Parkinson Zamora, Lois. “The Magical Tables of Isabel Allende and Remedios Varo,” Comparative Literature, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, Spring 1992, reproduced in blackand-white;

Sandoval, Antoni F. “La pintura surrealista de Remedios Varo, nacida en la Selva, se exhibe en Girona,” La Vanguardia, Girona, Spain, January 18, 1992

Born 1908 Anglès, Cataluña, Spain

Died 1963 Mexico City, Mexico

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2023 Remedios Varo: Science Fictions, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL

Remedios Varo: Encuentros, Gallery Wendi Norris, San Francisco, CA

2022 Remedios Varo: Disrupciones de lo real, Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City, Mexico

2020 Remedios Varo: Constelaciones, Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires (MALBA), Buenos Aires, Argentina

2018 Adictos a Remedios Varo, Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City, Mexico

2016 Remedios Varo: Apuntes y anécdotas de una colección, Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City, Mexico

2012 Indelible Fables, Gallery Wendi Norris, San Francisco, CA

2008 Cinco llaves del mundo secreto de Remedios Varo, Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City, Mexico

2001 Remedios Varo, Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City, Mexico

2000 The Magic of Remedios Varo, National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington D.C.; Mexican Fine Arts Museum, Chicago, IL

1999 Remedios Varo, Isetan Museum of Art, Tokyo, Japan; Denki-Bunka-Kaikan, Nagoya, Japan; The Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura, Kanagua, Japan

1997 Remedios Varo, Pintura, Banco de la República, Bogotá,

CURRICULUM VITAE

Colombia

1994 Remedios Varo 1908-1963, Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City, Mexico

1991-92 Remedios Varo. Arte y Literatura, Museo Provincial de Teruel, Teruel, Spain; Tomás de Lorenzana, Girona, Spain; Torreón Fortea, Zaragoza, Spain

1989 Remedios Varo, Museo de Monterrey, Monterrey, Mexico

1988 Remedios Varo, Fundación Banco Exterior, Madrid, Spain

1987 Remedios Varo, Museo Carrillo Gil, Mexico City, Mexico

1986 Science in Surrealism. The Art of Remedios Varo, The New York Academy of Sciences, New York, NY

1985 Consejos y Recetas de Remedios Varo, Museo Biblioteca Pape, Monclova, Mexico

1983 Remedios Varo 1913-1963, Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City, Mexico

1971 Obra de Remedios Varo 1908-1963, Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City, Mexico; National Academy of Sciences, Washington, D.C.

1964 La Obra de Remedios Varo, Museo Nacional de Arte Moderno, Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico City, Mexico

1962 Óleos recientes de Remedios Varo, Galería Juan Martin, Mexico City, Mexico

1956 Remedios Varo, Galerías Diana, Mexico City, Mexico

SELECT GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2022-23 Surrealism and Magic: Enchanted Modernity, Peggy

Guggenheim Collection, Venice, Italy; Museum Barberini, Potsdam, Germany

2022 59th Venice Biennale, The Milk of Dreams, Venice, Italy

Sólo lo maravilloso es bello. Surrealismo en diálogo, Museo Boijmans Van Beuningen - México, Museo del Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico City, Mexico

2021-22 Surrealism Beyond Borders, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY; Tate Modern, London, UK

2020 Fantastic Women, Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, Germany

2018 The Moon, Louisiana Museum of Art, Humlebaek, Denmark

2017 Accrochage 60’s, Galerie Natalie Seroussi, Paris, France Surrealist Women, Mayoral, Barcelona, Spain

2016 Campo Cerrado: Spanish Art 1939 – 1953, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain

Los Modernos, Museo Nacional de Arte, Mexico City, Mexico

2015 Science in Surrealism, Gallery Wendi Norris, San Francisco, CA

Kahlo, Rivera & Mexican Modern Art, NSU Art Museum, Fort Lauderdale, FL

2014 Arte Mexicano: Legacy of the Masters, Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA

2012 Exquisite Corpses: Drawing and Disfiguration, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY

In Wonderland: The Surrealist Adventures of Women Artists in Mexico and the United States, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA; Musée National des Beaux-arts, Québec, Canada; Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City, Mexico

2011 Exultation: Sex, Death and Madness in Eight Surrealist Masterworks, Gallery Wendi Norris, San Francisco, CA

2010 Painting and Sculpture Changes, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY

Surreal Friends, Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, UK; Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, Norwich, UK

2009 Obras 1900-1960, Colección pictórica del Banco Nacional de México, Malba-Fundación Costantini, Buenos Aires, Argentina

2006 Transforming Chronologies: An Atlas of Drawings, Part One, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY

2003 Colectiva de Mujeres Mexicanas, The Bunkamura Museum of Art, Tokyo, Japan; Suntory Museum, Osaka, Japan; Nagoya City Art Museum, Nagoya, Japan; The Museum of Art, Kochi, Japan

2001-02 Exposición permanente, National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C.

2001 Surrealism: Desire Unbound, Tate Modern, London, UK

2000-01 Exposición permanente, National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C.

1998-99 Mirror Images: Women, Surrealism and Self-Representation, MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, MA; Miami Art Museum, Miami, FL; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA

1997-98 Exposición permanente, National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C.

1996-97 ¿Buñuel! La mirada del siglo, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain; Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico City, Mexico

1995 Latin American Women Artists 1915-1995, Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, WI; Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, AZ; Denver Art Museum, Denver, CO; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C.; Center for Fine Arts, Miami, FL

Drawing on Chance: Selections from the Collection, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY

1994 El Surrealismo en España, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain; Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany; Kunsthalle Vienna, Vienna, Austria; Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Verona, Italy; Auditorio Galicia, Santiago de Compostela, Spain

1991 André Breton, la beauté convulsive, Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France

André Breton y el surrealismo, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain

The Surrealist Drawing: A Selection from the Collection, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY

1990 Women in México, National Academy of Design, New York, NY

Anxious Visions, Surrealist Art, University Art Museum, Berkeley, CA

Juegos surrealistas: 100 cadáveres exquisitos, Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, Spain

1989 Art in Latin America 1820-1980, Hayward Gallery, London, UK

I Surrealisti, Palazzo Reale, Milan, Italy

1988 Surrealisme a Catalunya 1924-1936, Centre d’Art Santa Monica, Barcelona, Spain; Sala Velázquez de Caja de Barcelona, Madrid, Spain

1978-88 Regards sur Minotaure, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris, France; Musée Rath, Geneva, Switzerland

1987 19a Bienal de São Paulo, Armando de Arruda Pereira, São Paulo, Brazil

La Femme et le Surréalisme, Musée Cantonal de Beaux-Arts, Lausanne, France

European Drawings Between the Wars, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY

1985 Artistic Collaboration in the Twentieth Century, Hirshhorn Museum, Washington D.C.; J.B. Speed Art Museum, Louisville, KY

1983 El exilio español en México, Palacio de Velázquez, Madrid, Spain

1980 L’altra metà dell’avanguardia 1910-1940, Ufficio della Esposizione de Lombardia, Milan, Italy

1979 Obra plástica del exilio español, 1939-1979, Museo de San Carlos, Mexico City, Mexico

1978 Dada & Surrealism Reviewed, Hayward Gallery, London, UK

1975 La mujer como creador y tema del arte, Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City, Mexico

El Surrealisme a Catalunya, 1925-1975, Galería Dau al Set, Barcelona, Spain

1974 Seurat to Matisse: Drawing in France, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY

1973 El arte del surrealismo, Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City, Mexico

1971 Surrealismo y arte fantástico, Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City, Mexico

1968 Dada, Surrealism & Their Heritage, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA; Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL

1967 Frida Kahlo accompañada de siete pintoras, Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City, Mexico

Surrealismo y arte fantástico en México, Galería Aristos, Mexico City, Mexico

1966 Autorretrato y obra, Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City, Mexico

Pintura Mexicana de Hoy, Chemistry Faculty at Mexico City University, Mexico

1962 Segundo Salon de la Plástica Femenina, Galerías Excelsior, Mexico City, Mexico

1961 Mexican Art, The National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Canada; The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal, Canada Exposición Por-Prisioneros Politicos de España, Ateneo Español, Mexico City, Mexico

1960 Segunda Bienal Interamericana de México, Museo Nacional de Arte Moderno, Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico City, Mexico Exposición Retrospectiva de la Pintura Mexicana, Museo de Ciencias y Artes, Ciudad Universitaria, Mexico City, Mexico

1959 Fifth International Art Exhibition, Metropolitan Art Gallery, Tokyo, Japan

Primer Salon Nacional de Pintura, Museo Nacional de Arte Moderno, Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico City, Mexico

1958 Exposición inaugural—Arte Mexicano, Museo Nacional de Arte Moderno, Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico City, Mexico

1956 Salon Annual Frida Kahlo, Galería Artistas Unidos, Mexico City, Mexico

1947 Le Surréalisme en 1947, Galerie Maeght, Paris, France

1938 Exposition Internationale du Surréalisme, Galerie Beaux-Arts, Paris, France; Galerie Robert, Amsterdam, Netherlands; Galería de Arte Mexicano, Mexico City, Mexico

1937 Exposition Internationale du Surréalisme, Nippon Salon, Tokyo, Japan

Surrealist Objects & Poems, London Gallery, London, UK

1936 Exposició Logicofobista, Galerías Catalònia, Barcelona, Spain Exposition surréaliste d’objets, Galerie Charles Ratton, Paris, France

Fantastic Art, Dada, Surrealism, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY

1934 Colectiva de Estudiantes, Academia de San Fernando, Madrid, Spain

1930 Dibujos, Unions Españoles de Dibujantes, Madrid, Spain

SELECT COLLECTIONS

Banco Nacional de México, Mexico

Capital Bank, Miami, Florida

Centre Pompidou, Paris, France

Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, Michigan

FEMSA Collection, Monterrey, Mexico

Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes, Mexico City, Mexico

Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City, Mexico

Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts

Museum of Modern Art, New York, New York

National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington D.C.

Pérez Simón Collection, Mexico City, Mexico

Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton, New Jersey

Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

Callois, Roger, Juliana González y Octavio Paz. Remedios Varo. Mexico City: Ediciones Era, 1966

Kaplan, Janet A. Unexpected Journeys: The Art and Life of Remedios Varo. New York: Abbeville Press, 1988

Stitch, Sidra, with essays by James Clifford, Tyler Stovall, and Steven Kovács. Anxious Visions: Surrealist Art. The Regents of the University of California, Berkeley and Abbeville Press, Inc., New York, 1990

Sawin, Martica. Surrealism in Exile and the Beginning of the New York School. Cambridge & London: The MIT Press, 1995

del Conde, Teresa, with Francisco Serrano. Remedios Varo 1908-1963

Mexico: Museo de Arte Moderno, INBA, 1994, 3rd edition 1997

Rosemont, Penelope. Surrealist Women: An International Anthology Austin: University of Texas Press, 1997

Chadwick, Whitney. Woman Artists and the Surrealist Movement. Lonndon: Thames & Hudson, 1985

Chadwick, Whitney, ed., with essays by Dawn Ades, Whitney Chadwick, Salomon Grimberg, Katy Kline, Helaine Posner, Susan Rubin Suleiman, and Dickran Tashjian, selected biography by Michael Leininger. Mirror Images: Women, Surrealism and Self-Representation. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1988

Surrealism: Two Private Eyes, The Nesuhi Ertegun and Daniel Filipacchi Collections. Edited by Edward Weisberger, essays by Timothy Baum, José Pierre, Werner Spies, Rosalind E. Krauss, Jacques Baron. New York: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Foundation, 1999

Surrealism: Desire Unbound, edited by Jennifer Mundy, consultant editor Dawn Ades, special advisor Vincent Gille, Millbank, London: Tate Publishing Ltd, 2001

Lozano, Luis-Martin, translated by Elizabeth Goldson Nicholson and Liliana Valenzuela. The Magic of Remedios Varo. London: Giles, 2006

van Raay, Stefan, Joanna Moorhead, and Teresa Arcq. Surreal Friends: Leonora Carrington, Remedios Varo and Kati Horna. London: Lund Humphries in association with Pallant House Gallery, 2010

Nonaka, Masayo. Remedios Varo: The Mexican Years. Mexico City: Editorial RM, 2012

Published on the occasion of the exhibition

Remedios Varo: Encuentros

May 11 — July 15, 2023

Gallery Wendi Norris

436 Jackson Street

San Francisco, CA 94111

+1.415.346.7812

gallerywendinorris.com

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval systems) without permission in writing from the publishers.

TEXTS

ARCHIVIST/CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Whitney Graham

CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Teresa Arcq - Niño y mariposa (Niño triste)

PRODUCTION DIRECTOR

Melanie Cameron

EDITOR

Patricia Albers

DESIGN

Erin McFarland

PHOTOS

Glen Cheriton

436 Jackson Street San Francisco, CA 94111 gallerywendinorris.com