Remedios Varo, Banqueros en acción (Bankers in action), 1962. Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
by Brian Boucher
March 26, 2024
Chalk up another landmark in the growing recognition of the great Surrealist artist Remedios Varo. She will soon have her first New York exhibition in decades, at the same moment that her works are entering new museum collections.
"A Visionary Line: Remedios Varo Drawings" will be not only her first New York solo show in nearly 40 years, but also the first exhibition devoted to her work in the medium. The show is part of a series of "offsite" exhibitions that San Francisco dealer Wendi Norris has staged, and will take place at Adler Beatty Gallery, on Manhattan's Upper East Side.
The show coincides with the acquisition of the artist's works by two major museums, the National Galleries of Scotland and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.; in each case, they are the first examples by Varo to enter their collections. Scotland will add Encounter (1959), which is also the first Varo painting to enter a European museum's holdings, while the D.C. museum has acquired Banqueros en acción (Bankers in action) (1962), and a preparatory drawing. Varo completed only about 100 paintings in her lifetime, and most of them are off the market, now hanging in the museums of her adopted homeland of Mexico.
