About the Author

Remedios Varo y Uranga (1908-1963) was raised in a traditional middle-class family in Spain and rigorously trained at the prestigious San Fernando Academy in Madrid, Dali's alma mater. Varo first found her place in the bohemian avant-garde group in Barcelona. After fleeing the Spanish Civil War with surrealist poet Benjamin Peret, she joined the circle of surrealists in Paris in 1937, and her experimental works were included in surrealist publications and exhibitions. The outbreak of World War II forced her to flee Nazi-occupied Paris. She eventually found refuge in Mexico with Peret, who would later become her husband. She remained there until her untimely death in 1963. For some ten years, from the mid 1950s to 1963, Varo devoted herself to producing her intricate fairy tales, rich with subtle wit, humour and fantasy, for which she has been acclaimed as one of the most talented women surrealists in 20th century art.