The Magic of Remedios Varo

National Museum of Women in the Arts, 2000. paperback. Very Good. 10x8x0. 2000 National Museum of Women in the Arts (Washington, D.C.), 8 1/2 x 11 inches tall paperbound in color pictorial covers, copiously illustrated with color reproductions of artwork, essays and bibliography, 151 pp. Very slight rubbing to covers, with the slightest creasing to the lower tips. Otherwise, a near fine copy - clean, bright and unmarked. ~SP40~ [3.0P] Published on the occasion of the first major exhibition of Varo’s art in the United States hosted by the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, DC., studies the full range of Varo’s work. It considers her formal artistic training in the rigid academic atmosphere of the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in Madrid, and her sojourns in Paris in 1930 and 1937, which brought Varo into contact with the surrealist movement of André Breton that was to define her artistic expression for the rest of her career. The main part of the book is devoted to the period following her exile in Mexico in 1940. It was here that Varo’s art became fully defined, and where she was recognized and championed by leading intellectual figures, such as the poet Octavio Paz. This volume celebrates in 77 beautiful color paintings the complexity of Varo’s art, which defies easy classification. Inspired by the visual forms of surrealist artists, such as Yves Tanguy and Marcél Jean, but at the same time establishing its own unique vision, the paintings of Remedios Varo evoke a sense of deep mystery that leads us through a complex intellectual world, where cunning, irony and harsh questioning are the cornerstones of art. María de los Remedios Alicia Rodriga Varo y Uranga (1908-1963) was a Spanish surrealist painter working in Spain, France, and Mexico. Varo's artwork is well known in Mexico, but had not been as well known throughout the rest of the world. In addition to this 2000 retrospective, in 2023 the Art Institute of Chicago held an exhibit of her work from July 29 through Nov 27, the first to be held of her work in the last 20 years in the U.S. with half of the works seen for the first time in the U.S.