Remedios Varo: Unexpected Journeys (1988)

The adventures that fill the strange and wonderful paintings by Remedios Varo (1908-1963) reflect the physical and psychological journeys of her own tumultuous life. Raised in a strict Spanish family and rigorously trained in academic art, Varo first found escape in Barcelona’s bohemian avant-garde. After fleeing the Spanish Civil War with the poet Benjamin Péret, later her husband, she entered the inner circle of the Surrealists in Paris. Forced to flee again by the Nazis, she and Péret faced a year of mounting danger in Marseilles before securing passage to Mexico. Finding welcome refuge in Mexico City, where she remained until her death, Varo produced the extraordinary paintings for which she gained renown. Janet A. Kaplan’s vivid chronicle, the first on the subject in English, weaves Varo’s life with the artist’s exquisite work. Painted with a jewel like palette and old-master precision, Varo’s intimate tableaux, rich with details of women’s experience, tell fantasy tales of alchemy, science, mysticism, and magic. Fifty colour reproductions capture the wit and beauty of her major paintings; numerous black and white illustrations document other works and portray the compelling artist with her circle of lifelong friends and admirers. The book is further enlivened by her own voice, conveyed in hilarious letters and surreal stories, published here for the first time. It concludes with an invaluable chronology as well as a newly updated bibliography and list of exhibitions. A woman of intense magnetism and powerful imagination, Varo had been little known outside Mexico, but she has recently found enthusiastic audiences in Europe, the Americas, Australia, and Japan. The fascinating story of her life and the dazzling intricacy of her art will prove a revelation.

Condition: Some stains to dust-jacket and boards, otherwise very good.