Remedios Varo

Remedios Varo was a Spanish-born painter whose richly imaginative, symbol-laden works have secured her place as one of the most enigmatic figures of 20th-century art. Born in Anglès, Catalonia in 1908, she studied at the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in Madrid, an institution that also trained Salvador Dalí. Varo’s early exposure to technical drawing, mysticism and literature shaped a lifelong interest in science, alchemy and the esoteric, all of which later permeated her work.

Following the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War and rising fascism in Europe, Varo relocated to Paris in 1937, where she became associated with the Surrealists. Her friendships with figures such as André Breton and Benjamin Péret (with whom she had a romantic relationship) introduced her to the Surrealist practice of automatism and to the exploration of the unconscious. Yet Varo’s work remained distinct from mainstream Surrealism. More introspective, allegorical and technically refined, her paintings often featured androgynous protagonists engaged in mystical or scientific pursuits within fantastical interiors.

Fleeing Nazi-occupied France during the Second World War, Varo eventually settled in Mexico City in 1941, where she found an environment conducive to her intellectual and artistic vision. There, she developed her mature style: intricate, dreamlike compositions rendered in tempera and oil, marked by meticulous detail and an ethereal palette. Works such as Exploration of the Sources of the Orinoco River (1959) and Creation of the Birds (1957) reflect her fascination with inner transformation, cosmic order and metaphysical inquiry.

Varo’s deeply personal iconography drew on a synthesis of Renaissance art, Gothic architecture, occult symbolism and scientific diagrams. Though she exhibited little during her lifetime, her work achieved cult status posthumously, especially among feminist scholars who recognised in her oeuvre a subtle yet potent subversion of patriarchal structures. Today, Varo is celebrated as a visionary whose art transcends category, merging mysticism with modernity.