Two muesums in the U.S. to have surrealist Remedios Varo's works

Remedios Varo's  Tailleur pour dames, 1957

 The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio, have recently purchased pieces by Remedios Varo, a Surrealist artist whose work is gaining fresh institutional attention in the United States.

Varo created paintings showing artists and intellectuals in elaborate dream-like scenarios during the 1950s and 1960s. After fleeing to Mexico City as a refugee during World War II, her career took off in those years. Her market is increasing and her stature in art history is rising six decades after her death in 1963, with her work poised to be featured in this year's Venice Biennale.

Tailleur pour dames (1957), a recent purchase at the MFA Boston, displays a tailor's store with four ladies dressed in clothing that each appear to take on new transformations—a dress transforms into a boat, a scarf transforms into a seat, and a purple cloak floats into the air. 

Varo painted less than 200 oil paintings throughout her career, and this is one of just a handful large-scale pieces she produced, the most of which are now in private collections. It's also the first painting by Varo to be added to the museum's collection, as well as the only one in New England held by a public collection.

Varo's 1956 piece on paper Cazadora de astros (La luna aprisionada), representing a female hunter capturing the moon, was bought by the Toledo Museum of Art in January. The art was dubbed a "tour-de-force" by the museum.

Varo's painting of the Juggler 

Varo will be on display at the MFA beginning March 17 as part of a rehang of the museum's 20th-century art assets, where it will be shown in a gallery dedicated to Latin American art. The museum is selling three paintings by Georgia O'Keeffe and Charles Sheeler from its Americas collection this year in order to raise funding for new modern purchases.

"It is thrilling that we will now be able to convey the story of this worldwide aesthetic movement via the works of a woman who worked in Latin America," MFA director Matthew Teitelbaum said in a statement, calling Varo "one of the most fascinating Surrealists of the twentieth century."