Remedios Varo

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Remedios Varo (born December 16, 1908 in Anglès , † October 8, 1963 in Mexico City ) was a Spanish surrealist painter.

Life

Varo studied at the Academia de San Fernando in Madrid . In 1930 she married Gerardo Lizarraga, a fellow student at the academy with whom she lived in Barcelona . There she met the painters of the avant-garde . She became part of the Surrealism-influenced group Grupo Logicofobista .

In 1935 she separated from Lizarraga and shortly afterwards met the writer Benjamin Péret , who took part in the Spanish Civil War as a volunteer on the side of the Republic . The two married and went to Paris in 1936 . There she came into contact with the surrealist painters in André Breton's group . After the invasion of the Nazis , the two fled first to Marseille and then to Mexico .

There they frequented intellectual and revolutionary circles again (including Leonora Carrington , Octavio Paz and Gunther Gerzso ). The marriage with Péret was divorced in 1947. Varo went to Venezuela for two years . After her return to Mexico City, she met Walter Gruen , whom she married soon after. From then on she devoted herself only to painting. In 1956 she had her first solo exhibition.

Work and meaning

Roulotte , oil on canvas, 1955

Her first influence was Salvador Dalí . In contrast to him, her depictions of dreams, daydreams and symbols are totally fantastic, full of wit and mystery. Her surreal dream figures stand out in every painting. Nature, alchemy, the supernatural and women as a source of sensitivity are her main themes. She mainly used egg tempera in the technique of the old masters with fine brushwork on self-prepared panels.

In 2001, the Mexican government officially declared her pictures a “national treasure”. Gruen donated 39 of her works to the "Museo de Arte Moderno" in Mexico City as a thank you for being able to find a second home in Mexico. The paintings can be viewed as a permanent exhibition in the "Xavier Villaurrutia" room of the museum. Her niece, Beatriz Varo Jiménez, claimed them, but in 2006 they were finally given to the Mexican government.

Judgments from contemporaries

The surrealist and director Luis Buñuel writes in his memoir that he admires Remedios Varo "as much as Max Ernst ."

Special paintings

  • Premonición , 1953
  • Paraiso de los Gatos (Paradise of the Cats), 1955
  • La Despedida (The Farewell), 1958
  • Retrato del Dr. Chávez (Portrait of Dr. Chávez), 1958
  • Creación de las Aves (Creation of Birds), 1958
  • El Relojero (The Watchmaker), 1958
  • Nacer de Nuevo (To be Born Again ), 1960
  • Mujer Saliendo del Psicoanalista (Woman leaving the psychoanalyst), 1960
  • Hacia la Torre (To the Tower), 1960
  • La Huída (The Escape), 1961
  • Taxi acuático (water taxi), 1962
  • Vampiros Vegetarianos (Vegetarian Vampires), 1962

Web links

Commons : Remedios Varo  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Rebecca Herlemann: Remedios Varo (short biography), in: Ingrid Pfeiffer (Hrsg.): Fantastische Frauen - Surreal Welten from Meret Oppenheim to Frida Kahlo , catalog for the exhibition in the Schirn Kunsthalle (Frankfurt), Hirner Verlag, Munich 2020, ISBN 978-3-7774-3413-1 , p. 399
  2. ↑ Luis Buñuel: My Last Sigh , Berlin 2004, p. 158
personal data
SURNAME Varo, Remedios
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Spanish surrealist painter
DATE OF BIRTH December 16, 1908
PLACE OF BIRTH Anglès
DATE OF DEATH October 8, 1963
Place of death Mexico city