Friday, December 16, 2016

The Awesomeness of The Female Surrealists

I love art as much as I love writing and music, but my ultimate favorite artists, aside from the Symbolists, are the female surrealists. You might have heard of Dali, Max Ernst, and Magritte, but a few of their associates, including the famous Frida Kahlo, were amazing artists in their own right. Mysticism, the Goddess, animals, nature, and feminist themes are predominant in their works, which are all deeply personal representations of their imaginations.


Born in Buenos Aires and disguised in childhood as a boy by her mother (to avoid being found by her father), Leonor moved to Paris in the late 1930s. She knew Max Ernst and Jean Genet. Sphinx-like and mysterious, she had an affinity for felines. She lived with two men at one time, both her lovers. Her paintings are ritualistic, fascinating, erotic, inspired by the Symbolists and the Pre-Raphaelites. They are fairy tales. There's even a song written about her by Katell Keineg.


I love her self-portrait with a delicate black hyena and a white rocking horse. She had a fondness for Celtic and Mayan mythology and even lived in Mexico, married to Max Ernst. Most of her paintings are fantasy scenes of delicate, human-looking creatures, heavy with symbology. She also wrote Surrealist fiction.


Her paintings are disturbing renderings of womanhood and adolescence. Born in Illinois, she read Alice in Wonderland and the Gothic authors to escape what she considered a boring, Midwestern life. She moved to New York, where she eventually met Max Ernst (He got around) and became his lifetime companion.


 Alchemy, owls, and forlorn, attenuated people, were Remedios's totems. Her paintings are delicate and child-like. She was born in Madrid and eventually settled in Mexico. The spirit world lurks just beneath the surface of her paintings.

Women Artists and the Surrealist Movement by Whitney Chadwick
Surrealism and Women by Mary Ann Caws, Rudolf Kuenzli, Gwen Raaberg

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