Remedios Varo, The Call (La Llamada)
Speaker: Dr. Lauren Kilroy-Ewbank
A Surrealist Artist in Mexico
Remedios Varo’s The Call is a beautiful Surrealist painting. Varo was deeply interested in the occult, mysticism, magic, astrology, witchcraft, and more, and she explored these ideas alongside close friends like Leonora Carrington while they lived in Mexico City. Varo and Carrington were both artists who had fled Europe during the chaos of war. Varo escaped both the Spanish Civil War and World War II, fleeing to Mexico in 1941. Living in Mexico City as an expatriate, she joined other artists, such as Carrington, to experiment with Surrealism, a movement concerned with myths, dream worlds, and the unconscious.
Remedios Varo
La llamada (The Call), 1961, oil on masonite, 42 x 31 in. National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C. Photo: © Lauren Kilroy-Ewbank.
Video chapters
0:00 Looking at Remedios Varo's The Call (La llamada)
0:51 Comparison with medieval figures and alchemical instruments
1:31 Figures and architecture
2:03 Questions about the subject matter
2:30 Remedios Varo and her interests and circle in Mexico City
Learn more
Find more resources about women artists.
Learn more about modern art in the Americas.
