Remedios Varo – Rheumatic Pain I (1948)

Largely unknown outside of Mexico, today Remedios Varo is still one of the many forgotten female artists of Surrealism. Just a quick glance at her work, that blends alchemy, the occult, architecture and science, will make you realize that the solitary women she portrayed were often tortured and enclosed, trapped in cages and towers – […]

Max Ernst – The Virgin Spanking the Christ Child (1926)

A true innovator and provocateur, German artist Max Ernst was one of the leading figures of Surrealism and the Dada art movements, blending in mythology, Christian iconography and Freudian psychology in his dark, dreamlike artworks. The gruesome experience of fighting during World War I made him realize that the world was irrational, objective reality being […]

Henri Rousseau – The Sleeping Gypsy (1897)

His contemporaries called him the Customs Officer (Le Douanier), in reference to his day job as a toll collector in Paris. Mostly a self-taught artist, Henri Rousseau didn’t start painting until he was in his 40s. With his childlike naiveté and vivid imagination, the Frenchman fell right in with the Post-impressionists, having an everlasting impact […]