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Remedios Varo

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Artist

The Resume

    (December 16, 1908-October 8, 1963)
    Born in Anglès, Girona, Spain
    María de los Remedios Alicia Rodriga Varo y Uranga
    Para-Surrealist painter, political revolutionary, noted Anarchist
    Member of the Logicophobiste art group
    Married French surrealist poet Benjamin Péret,in 1937
    Graduated from the Real Academia de Bellas Artes in San Fernando, Madrid (1924)
    Painted 'The Call,' 'Spiral Transit,' 'The Battle,' 'Transworld,' 'The Piper,' 'Dead Leaves,' 'Fern Cat,' 'Towards the Tower,' 'Vampire,' 'Phenomenon,' and 'Still Life Resurrecting'

Why she might be annoying:

    She clashed with Diego Rivera on several occasions.
    She harbored a strong animosity towards organized religion.
    This inherent distrust apparently came from her mother's determination to have her shut away in a convent.
    She never officially divorced her first husband, but remarried anyway.
    Her work took over a decade to resonate with the Mexican public, who were more used to the ornate style of the Mexican mural.
    Her artwork tended to veer into strange territory - even for surrealist painters (a weird mix of futuristic utopias, religious subjects, and supernatural/mythical creatures).
    One such painting depicted three humanoid 'man-bats' in a deserted cafe, sucking the juice out of an assortment of fruits with straws (two of them have pet chickens on leashes).
    Her third (common law) husband and her niece engaged in a heated lawsuit over who should be given inheritance rights for 32 of her paintings (1992).

Why she might not be annoying:

    Her ‘technical’ style came from her copying her architect father’s blueprints.
    She fled to Paris to escape the violence of the Spanish Civil War (her political ties all but guaranteed that she could never return to her home country).
    While in Paris, she met and collaborated on several art pieces with Andre Breton (who introduced her to Surrealism).
    She and her second husband were imprisoned by the French for their Communist affiliations.
    Her situation went from bad to worse after the Nazis invaded Paris four years later, prompting her to emigrate yet again - this time to Mexico (1941).
    She had initially sought to immigrate to the United States, but obtaining visas proved impossible so long as she was a known Communist sympathizer.
    She died shortly after finally gaining the acceptance of Mexico's artistic elites (her first successful exhibition had only been eight years prior).
    In terms of looks, lets just say she wouldn't have been out of place in a Frederico Fellini movie.
    Madonna used her painting, 'The Lovers,' as inspiration for artistic set design for her 'Bedtime Story' music video, in 1995.
    Her artwork (over fifty pieces) was displayed in a retrospective exhibition at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C. (2000).
    The isolated nature of her artwork is said to have been rooted in her marginalized status as a woman in a male-dominated field/society (although her experiences in WWII likely factored in as well).

Credit: BoyWiththeGreenHair


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    In 2023, Out of 3 Votes: 33.33% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 10 Votes: 90.0% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 4 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 24 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2018, Out of 266 Votes: 66.92% Annoying
    In 2017, Out of 3 Votes: 33.33% Annoying
    In 2016, Out of 6 Votes: 50.0% Annoying