In celebration of Women’s History Month, we turn our attention to Remedios Varo. An artist whose visionary work transcends the boundaries of the seen and the unseen. Her surrealist masterpieces are housed in major collections, including the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C.
Remedios Varo, born in 1908, in Anglès, Girona, Spain, was a prominent Spanish-Mexican surrealist artist. Her father, Rodrigo Varo y Zajalvo, was a hydraulic engineer whose profession required the family to relocate across Spain and North Africa. This nomadic lifestyle influenced Varo, instilling in her a sense of longing for a permanent home.
Varo's early education was shaped by her father's guidance in technical drawing. She also attended strict Catholic schooling, against which she often rebelled. At the age of 15, she enrolled in the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in Madrid. She was one of the first women to do so, studying alongside notable artists like Salvador Dalí and Picasso.
In the 1930s, Varo moved to Barcelona and later to Paris. There, she immersed herself in the flourishing Surrealist movements of the time. Her interactions with Surrealist artists, combined with exposure to modernist thinkers, had a profound influence on her artistic direction.
A key figure in the Surrealist movement, Varo immersed herself in alchemy, astrology, and esoteric philosophy. Her work, imbued with mystery, can be found in the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C.
Varo created surrealist masterpieces, with unusual, almost invisible details. She experimented with 23 artistic techniques, layering symbols and textures to build otherworldly dreamscapes.
We know she painted with crystals beside her, but it's believed that Varo used them to scratch the surfaces of masonite boards before painting, imbuing the works with magic from their very beginnings.
Varo’s La llamada (The Call, 1961), housed in the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C., epitomizes her signature palette and mystical themes. A luminous female figure, bathed in fiery orange-gold, emerges from the darkness. She steps forward, while those around her remain shrouded in shadow.
In La llamada (The Call, 1961), a figure emerges from a narrow, confining archway, glowing gold, bathed in celestial light and holding magical tools. But around her other figures remain still, asleep and trapped in rigid structures. Perhaps Varo’s work is not just something to behold, but an invitation to wake up—to break free from confinement and embrace the unknown.