Surrealist artist Remedios Varo was born in Spain today, in 1908. Her father was very encouraging of her interest in art and helped her begin to perfect her technical drawing skills. He also provided reading material on mysticism and Oriental philosophy to offset her Catholic upbringing. Varo would use these ideals in her subsequent canvas paintings, becoming one of the premier 20th century "para-Surrealists". She studied art at the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, Madrid, before emegrating to France to flee the Spanish Civil War. There, Remedios became familiar with the Surrealist movement and artists such as Andre Breton and Leonara Carrington (who would become a friend for life). She also met her second husband and great influence, Surrealist poet Benjamin Peret. The occupation of France by the Germans in 1941, exiled the couple, this time, to Mexico City, where she would make her home for the rest of her life.
Upon arrival to Mexico, Varo began work in commercial art, costume design and decorating, not returning to her Surrealistic painting for a couple of years. She did know famed Mexican artists (Rivera, Kahlo, etc.) but since she was not part of the Mexican muralist movement, Varo was more compatible with other expats...Carrington in particular...who had similar ideals. She had her first exhibit in 1955.
In addition to the paranormal, Remedios Varo's work also alludes to the isolationism Surrealist women artists often experienced (women were often thought of as simply the artists' muse). Often her figures' features resembled her own. Her work exhibits a Renaissance quality in tone and narrative. She considered her art a way of "communicating the incommunicable". Varo had several exhibits and two galleries devoted to her work before her untimely death from a heart attack at age 54. The retrospective of her work in 1971, drew the largest crowd in the history of the Museum of Modern Art, Mexico City, (even larger than retrospectives of Rivera or Jose Clemente Orozco).
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