M
ystical voyages, chimerical creatures, and fantastical landscapes: the imagery crafted by women Surrealists working in Mexico from the 1930s onwards reflect some of the movement’s most inventive and profound compositions. Surrealism, established when André Breton published his 1924 Surrealist Manifesto, swiftly permeated the Parisian avant-garde. Amid the Spanish Civil War and the looming threat of World War II, many artists fled Europe for the Americas. Mexico City became an especially favored refuge and transformed into an artistic sanctuary for natives and European émigrés alike. There, the Surrealists found a thriving community of avant-garde artists and intellectuals, and a place that offered diverse mythologies and dramatic landscapes that profoundly resonated with their sensibilities.
Women artists Leonora Carrington, Alice Rahon, and Remedios Varo settled in Mexico by the early 1940s. In their native Europe, women artists in the Surrealist group were often reduced to embodiments of pure feminine instinct, undercutting the intellectual rigor of their artistic contributions. In Mexico City, however, they found and seized upon a level of artistic freedom, and support from women-owned galleries, that allowed them to develop a highly unique creative language, delving into unconventional themes that resonated deeply with their surroundings and personal experiences. They also encountered an existing contingent of renowned female painters like Frida Kahlo and Maria Izquierdo.
While Kahlo drew inspiration from her own life, producing self-portraits with piercing analytical power that drew on Mexican folk painting, scientific drawings, photography and the Old Masters, Izquierdo created dream-like paintings that blend Surrealist elements with traditional Mexican motifs. The European Surrealists shared a deep interest in the subconscious and symbolism: Varo explored intimate mythologies similar to Kahlo’s self-analysis, while Carrington and Alice Rahon connected global myths with indigenous traditions. Their fascination with the natural and occult realms led to rich artistic expressions deeply influenced by their Mexican context, delving into esoteric knowledge, including indigenous cosmologies and metaphysics.
Living in exile proved extraordinarily fruitful creatively for now-renowned artists like Carrington, Varo and Rahon, as well as lesser known artists like Bridget Bate Tichenor; they, along with Kahlo, Izquierdo and Sofía Bassi crafted magical worlds and developed their distinctive visual language. This exhibition, held concurrently with the Frieze Art Fair and including works that span from the 1930s to the 1980s, captures and expands the vibrant evolution and depth of the Surrealist movement as expressed by women artists in Mexico.
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