Major museums and exhibitions for Remedios Varo, with closed shows marked as historical.

Museo de Arte Moderno (Mexico City)

An INBAL press notice describes a major Varo group of works at Museo de Arte Moderno entering through Walter Gruen and heirs: around 2000, a comodato of dozens of paintings (the notice discusses 37 paintings and a cadavre exquis, with later addition of La huida), and in 2018 donation of the artist’s archive—preparatory drawings (including for Creación de las aves), photographs, documents, a small set of pre-Hispanic pieces, textiles, books, and personal objects. The notice summarizes the acervo as 39 works plus archive. Art Institute captions for Science Fictions repeatedly credit MAM / INBAL / Secretaría de Cultura for paintings such as Creación de las aves (1957), Ciencia inútil, o El alquimista (1955), El flautista (1955), Tauro (1962), Roulotte (1955), and La huida (1961).

Live gallery rotation changes. Check MAM for what is on view before planning a visit.

National Museum of Women in the Arts (Washington, D.C.)

The Magic of Remedios Varo ran 10 February–29 May 2000. NMWA described it as the first U.S. retrospective to showcase her imagination and intellectual curiosity at that scale, with 77 paintings and drawings from collections in Mexico and the United States. The exhibition text notes jewel-like Surrealist detail, science and magic, women’s experience, and celebrity after the 1956 Mexico City solo show (crowds and waiting lists).

NMWA’s permanent collection includes La llamada (The Call), 1961, oil on Masonite, 42 × 31 inches, gift from a private collection. NMWA’s artist profile also lists earlier exhibitions that included her: Artists on the Road (1997–98) and Latin American Women Artists, 1915–1995 (1996).

Art Institute of Chicago — Science Fictions (2023)

Remedios Varo: Science Fictions was on view 29 July–27 November 2023 (Gallery 289; now closed). Organized with Museo de Arte Moderno and curated by Caitlin Haskell with guest curator Tere Arcq, it brought together more than twenty paintings from 1955–1963 plus archival cartoons, notebooks, sketches, studies, ephemera, and personal possessions. The museum called it the first U.S. museum exhibition dedicated to Varo since 2000, and its first solo show dedicated to a woman Surrealist painter and to a woman artist working in Mexico.

The old RemediosVaro.com homepage recommended visiting that Chicago exhibition. Readers should treat the recommendation as historical: the show has closed. The exhibition page and catalogue remain public records. The hardcover catalogue (Art Institute / Yale University Press; ISBN 978-0-300-273212 on the museum publication page) includes essays, a technique taxonomy, and a library inventory.

Museum of Modern Art (New York)

MoMA’s collection includes The Juggler (The Magician), 1956 (oil and inlaid mother-of-pearl on board; Gift of Joan H. Tisch by exchange). MoMA’s artist page also lists an untitled 1935 exquisite-corpse collage with Francés, Domínguez, and Jean, and The Tower (La torre), 1947, among works online. Exhibition history on that page includes Surrealist collection displays and earlier drawing shows; check MoMA for current installation status.

Other museums named in captions

Art Institute captions for Science Fictions identify Cazadora de astros (Star Catcher) (1956) as Toledo Museum of Art (purchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey, by exchange, accession noted in the caption as 2021.35). Private collections appear for works such as Exploración de las fuentes del río Orinoco, Hallazgo, and Hacia la torre. Collection Eduardo F. Costantini appears for Armonía and Simpatía. Those credits are repeated only as published.

Mexico City retrospectives after 1963

Britannica notes a 1971 Museum of Modern Art (Mexico) retrospective with record-breaking crowds after her 1963 death. Britannica highlights the record attendance.

How to plan looking without outdated tips

Start with MoMA and NMWA object pages for works in those collections, MAM/INBAL information for Mexico City holdings, and the Art Institute exhibition archive for the 2023 argument about 1955–1963.

Partnership model of Science Fictions

Chicago’s collaboration with Museo de Arte Moderno mattered because so many mature paintings and preparatory drawings live in Mexico. Curators Caitlin Haskell and Tere Arcq bridged U.S. and Mexican scholarship; the catalogue’s bilingual scholarly community is part of the legacy, not only the hang. Sponsors listed on Art Institute pages (including Fundación Jumex Arte Contemporáneo among major supporters) show institutional backing at scale.

Closed versus permanent

Temporary exhibitions end; collection objects persist (subject to loans and rotation). This page labels closed shows clearly and treats permanent-collection pages as the durable references for The Juggler and The Call.

Checklists and captions

Exhibition checklists change in press materials; final wall labels can differ from early announcements. Art Institute public pages for Science Fictions speak of “more than 20 paintings” plus archive materials. INBAL’s summary of MAM holdings (paintings plus archive) is institutional inventory language; check MAM’s own collections information for what is on view.

Why 1955–1963 keeps recurring

Curators keep returning to the last eight years because that is when waiting-list fame, densest production, and the most complex surfaces coincide (Britannica; Art Institute). Earlier European work remains important—MoMA’s 1935 collage proves Surrealist collaboration—but the paintings that remade her international reputation are overwhelmingly Mexican and late.

Sources

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