REMEDIOS VARO

Biography: Unexpected Journeys

Remedios Varo (1908-1963) was born in Anglès, Spain, and died in Mexico City. A master of mystical surrealism, her paintings blend alchemy, science, magic, and spiritual transformation into breathtaking visual journeys.

Early Years & Artistic Formation

Varo's childhood was marked by constant movement—traveling through Spain and North Africa with her father, a hydraulic engineer. These early journeys instilled in her a fascination with mathematics, mechanical drawing, and the idea of fantastic vehicles that could transport the soul to other realms.

She attended convent schools and the Academia de San Fernando in Madrid, where she received rigorous classical training. After a brief marriage to a fellow student, she moved to Barcelona to immerse herself in the city's avant-garde artistic circles.

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Paris & the Surrealist Circle

In Barcelona, Varo met and married the Surrealist poet Benjamin Péret. Together they moved to Paris at the end of the Spanish Civil War, where Varo became deeply involved in Surrealist circles between 1937 and 1939. She exhibited alongside the masters of the movement and absorbed their revolutionary ideas about dreams, the unconscious, and automatic creation.

An early abortion, probably necessitated by the economic realities of her life at the time, tragically prevented Varo from becoming pregnant again—a loss that would haunt her work with themes of creation, birth, and transformation.

Flight to Mexico: The Alchemical Journey

When World War II erupted, Varo and Péret were forced to flee France for political reasons. The journey was long, perilous, and transformative. Prevented from traveling to New York with other Surrealist émigrés because of Péret's leftist political affiliations, the penniless couple waited for months in Casablanca without proper papers.

In a haunting act that would echo through her future paintings, Varo remembered from her childhood trips to North Africa that Muslim dead must be wrapped in white for their final meeting with God. She raised small sums of money for the voyage by selling the few white bed sheets she had been able to pack—a profound symbol of death, rebirth, and spiritual passage.

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Finally, through the intervention of Varian Fry's French Relief Committee in Marseilles, they secured steamer passage. In November 1941, after a long and difficult journey, the couple arrived in Mexico.

They settled in a decaying apartment building on Gabino Barreda, not far from the ancient Aztec center of Mexico City and near the Monument to the Revolution. They arrived with no money other than the small allowance paid to Spanish political exiles by the Mexican government.

The Mexican Years: Finding Her Voice

Varo immediately began the wearying task of providing an income for the couple—an undertaking that would drain much time and energy from her own painting for the next ten years. She worked on commercial projects, designed costumes, and took on illustration work to survive.

During this period, she joined an active group of expatriate painters and writers that included Leonora Carrington. A profound and magical friendship developed between Varo and Carrington. Together they created a new pictorial language more relevant to their own styles and spiritual requirements.

They became absorbed in mysticism, sharing dreams, stories, and magic potions, as well as using painting as a recording of life's spiritual journeys. They explored alchemy, tarot, astrology, and the occult sciences together, weaving these esoteric studies into their art.

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Spiritual Awakening & Masterworks

During the early 1950s, Varo became involved with the followers of Gurdjieff, and with Tibetan Tantric and Zen Buddhism. These spiritual practices profoundly influenced her mature work, which depicts mystical journeys, alchemical transformations, and cosmic vehicles navigating between worlds.

Her paintings from this period are among the most extraordinary in 20th-century art—intricate tableaux where women in flowing robes pilot magical ships, where towers grow like living organisms, where the boundaries between the scientific and the magical dissolve completely.

Varo's first one-woman exhibition took place in 1956 at the Galería Diana in Mexico City and was met with immediate acclaim. Her work resonated deeply with audiences who recognized in her paintings a unique fusion of European surrealism and Mexican mysticism.

Tragically, Remedios Varo died suddenly of a heart attack in 1963, at the height of her creative powers. She was only 54 years old. Her retrospective at the Museo de Arte Moderno in 1971 drew the largest audiences in Mexican history—a testament to the profound impact of her visionary art.

Legacy of the Mystic Voyager

Varo remained in Mexico for the rest of her life, creating a body of work that stands as one of the great achievements of surrealist art. Her paintings continue to inspire viewers with their intricate detail, spiritual depth, and profound understanding of the alchemical process of transformation—both artistic and spiritual.

Her work is celebrated alongside that of Leonora Carrington, Frida Kahlo, and Leonor Fini as essential contributions to the female surrealist movement and to the broader history of mystical art.

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Major Exhibitions

Tokyo (1937) | Paris (1938) | Amsterdam (1938) | Mexico City (1949) | New York (1942) | Paris (1947)

Her first solo exhibition at Galería Diana in Mexico City (1956) marked the beginning of her public recognition. The posthumous retrospective at the Museo de Arte Moderno (1971) drew record-breaking crowds and cemented her status as one of Mexico's most beloved artists.

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