Born in Spain, Remedios Varo was raised by a devout Catholic mother and universalist father. As a child, she read countless fantasy novels and books on mysticism and alchemy. She was first introduced to art by her father, an engineer, whom she would help copy plans and diagrams. Continuing painting and drawing throughout her childhood, she moved to Madrid at 15 to study at the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, and was one of the few women to attend. She moved to Paris in the early 1930s, where she met several surrealist artists and poets. She partook in their exhibitions, studied surrealist interests, and experimented with their techniques. During the second world war, she was arrested along with her partner for suspicion of political activity, and later fled to Mexico. Here, she befriended several artists, including Leonora Carrington and Frida Kahlo.
Varo’s work experimented with concepts of fantasy, science fiction, and the occult, often blurring the lines between imagination and reality. Varo expressed her feminist beliefs through her art as well, painting independent, powerful, and often androgynous women figures. Her work often depicts confined women, speaking to her personal life and universal female experience.
