Remedios Varo (1908-1963)

Galería Juan Martín, Mexico City
Private Collection, Mexico City
Sale: Christie's, New York, Latin American Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture, May 1, 1990, lot 23, illustrated in color; also illustrated in color on the cover

Mexico City, Galería Juan Martin, Óleos recientes de Remedios Varo, June 1962
Mexico City, Museo Nacional de Arte Moderno, Palacio de Bellas Artes, La obra de Remedios Varo, August 1964
Mexico City, Museo de Arte Moderno, Remedios Varo: 1908-1963, February 25-June 25, 1994, no. 134, p. 74, illustrated in color
Kamakura, The Museum of Modern Art, Remedios Varo, October 21-November 28, 1999, p. 97, illustrated in color
Washington, National Museum of Women in the Arts, The Magic of Remedios Varo, February 10, 2000-May 29, 2000
Monterrey, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Monterrey, Historia de mujeres artistas en México del siglo XX,January 2008-February 2009, p. 50, illustrated in color

Raúl Flores Guerrero, "La pintura de Remedios Varo", La Obra de Remedios Varo, Mexico, INBA, 1964, illustrated in color
Octavio Paz and Roger Caillois, Remedios Varo, Mexico City, 1966, p. 6, illustrated in color
Juliana González, "Trasmundo de Remedios Varo", Remedios Varo, Mexico, 1966
Gonzalo Celorio, El surrealismo y lo real-maravilloso americano, Mexico, 1976, pp.29-31, discussed and illustrated
Artes de México, Universidad Nacional de México, et.al, 50 años de Arte Mexicano, Mexico City, pp. 38-9, illustrated in color
Edouard Jaguer, Remedios Varo, Mexico, 1980, p. 32, illustrated in color
Janet A. Kaplan, Remedios Varo: Unexpected Journeys, The Art and Life of Remedios Varo, New York, 1988, no. 11, p. 19, illustrated in color
Georgiana Colvile, Beyond and Beneath the Mantle: On Thomas Pynchon's, The Crying of Lot, Amsterdam, 1988, p. 115 and p. 118, illustrated
Fundación Banco Exterior, Remedios Varo, Madrid, 1988, no. 87, p. 8, illustrated in color 
Peter Engel, "The Traveler: Mexican Artist's Remedios Varo Quest for Order", Connoisseur Magazine, February 1988, p. 96, illustrated in color
Luis-Martín Lozano, "El trabajo creativo de Remedios Varo: entre El Bosco y André Breton", Remedios Varo, The Tokyo Shimbun, Japan, 1999, p. 97, illustrated in color
Walter Gruen, Ricardo Ovalle, et. al., Remedios Varo, Catálago Razonado, Tercera Edición, Mexico, 2002, no. 303, p. 253, illustrated in color
Germaine Gómez Haro, et. al. Historia de mujeres. Artistas en México del siglo XX. México, 2008, p. 50, illustrated in color
Stefan van Raay, Joanna Moorhead and Teresa Arcq, Surreal Friends, Leonora Carrington, Remedios Varo and Kati Horna, Mexico City, 2010, p. 113, illustrated in color

  

This work on panel is painted with a very particular technique involving scraping and sanding various areas. There is a very smooth gesso layer, and the textures that create the work are clearly visible and undamaged. The work seems to be clean, and there do not appear to be any retouches. There is a horizontal line in the lower right side in the dark wall that reads strongly under ultraviolet light, but this is not retouching. The condition of the painting is extremely good, if not perfect. (This condition report has been provided courtesy of Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc.)
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

LUIS-MARTIN LOZANO

Mexican modern art evokes deep nationalistic convictions. At its roots is a conflicted history profoundly marked by the struggle for independence and the first social revolution of the 20th century. Mexican culture however, has been quite cosmopolitan since the 16th century. The history of Mexican art reveals a country receptive to a continued dialogue with the West, maintaining a cultural pendulum between its own heritage and the rest of the world. It is not surprising, therefore, that with the advent of the Second World War and the Spanish Civil War, Mexico generously welcomed hundreds of thousands of immigrants who in turn, enriched and shaped the culture of their adoptive nation.

Of Spanish origin, Remedios Varo Uranga was one of the many artists who emigrated to Mexico fleeing the savagery in Europe, and that found in these lands, a climate of peace and tranquillity ideal for developing the full potential of her creative work. Having studied at the prestigious Academy of San Fernando in Madrid, the very skillful young painter traveled to Barcelona to meet the artists of the European avant-garde. There she came into contact with the aesthetic postulates of Surrealism and decided to leave for Paris to join the circle of André Breton.

Remedios Varo was a prominent Surrealist among the leading Surrealists and it was her talent--not her female status--which allowed her to display her work alongside the most important painters of her time. Once validated by Breton, Remedios Varo participated in the exhibition of Surrealist objects in 1936 in Paris and was included by Alfred Barr in the landmark exhibition of Fantastic Art, Dada & Surrealism organized by the Museum of Modern Art in New York that same year. Consequently, Remedios Varo was a Surrealist artist in her own right well before migrating to Mexico in 1941 accompanied by the poet Benjamin Péret.

Her early years in Mexico were characterized by mere subsistence. Not surprisingly, her artistic work entered into a period of creative lethargy until she met the Austrian refugee politician Walter Gruen Berger. It was Berger who procured Remedios with the ideal context in which to retrieve her artistic potential. Starting from 1954 her painting flourished with an imaginative and conceptual capacity far exceeding the postulates of the Surrealist movement. A period of intense production, she completed over one hundred wonderful paintings in just a decade, before dying at the peak of her creativity in 1963.

The work produced by Remedios Varo in Mexico is the most significant of her career. Magical, mysterious and enigmatic, every one of her pictures has become an icon for collectors around the world. In 1961 she painted her most ambitious work, a triptych in the manner of the great Flemish paintings she so admired. Executed in a format of almost 3 meters long; the picture was a synthesis of the origin, the desire and the future she envisioned for herself as an artist. At the left, she conceived Hacia la torre, (Towards the Tower), at the center, Bordando el manto terrestre (Embroiding the terrestrial mantle) in a private collection, and flanked to the right, La huida (The Flight) currently in the collection of the Museo de Arte Moderno in Mexico City. Painting with a technical virtuosity exacerbated by the rendition of minute details executed with very fine brushes, Varo captured the fears that had maintained her captive, her longing for love and the desire to produce her own works. Above all, she relished in the freedom she found in Mexico. Conceived as a conceptual narrative read over three images, the pictures were eventually separated and dispersed to private collections. Very few times have they been exhibited together.

Hacia la torre is the first pictorial manifesto of the trilogy. Capturing a young Remedios Varo, it depicts the artistic and social conventions of her native Spain. According to the own artist, a group of fearful young girls come out of their "beehive to go to work" guarded by a circle of birds which prevent them from escaping. They are "hypnotized," subordinated by a severe governess of monastic aspect. Only a girl, perhaps Remedios Varo herself, resists her absolute control. Staring outside of the picture plane, she makes the viewer her accomplice in her search for freedom. With a single gesture, Varo seduces the attentive observer and turns him or her into a protagonist of her own story and thus we become involved in the plot of her vicissitudes.

It was precisely the captivating quality of her paintings which earned Remedios Varo immediate success. Hacia la torre is, without a doubt, one of her most iconic works; filled with biographical references possible only in the creativity she rediscovered in her beloved Mexico.