Starting points for serious reading about Remedios Varo. Prefer libraries and museum shops when you can; the six titles in the right-hand column are also linked here for quick purchase.
Essential museum catalogue
Remedios Varo: Science Fictions — Art Institute of Chicago hardcover edited by Caitlin Haskell and Tere Arcq (2023). English, 184 pages, with essays, a technique taxonomy, and an inventory of a major portion of her library. The single best companion to this site’s themes and techniques pages.
Mexico years monograph
Remedios Varo: The Mexican Years by Masayo Nonaka — RM hardcover in English, 120 pages. A survey of her life and the dreamlike oils from her Mexico City maturity, with an illustrated chronology and the Surrealist circle around her.
Psychology, alchemy, and friendship
Alchemy, Jung, and Remedios Varo — Routledge paperback in the Research in Analytical Psychology and Jungian Studies series (262 pages, English). Depth psychology beside the paintings, including the alchemical thread in her friendship with Leonora Carrington.
Writings by Varo
On Homo rodans and Other Writings — Wakefield Press paperback, Remedios Varo with Margaret Carson (160 pages, English). Letters, dreams, recipes for controlled dreaming, the absurdist On Homo rodans essay, and newly discovered short stories.
In Spanish
Remedios (Spanish Edition) by Claudia Caicedo Vilariño — a 96-page Spanish paperback of fifty-two poems in dialogue with Varo’s paintings.
Remedios Varo. El hilo invisible by José Antonio Gil and Magnolia Rivera — Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México hardcover for a Spanish-language deep dive into her life and work.
Encyclopedia and museum primers (free online)
- Encyclopaedia Britannica’s Remedios Varo biography — concise dates and career outline.
- NMWA artist profile and The Call object page — museum voice on late style.
- MoMA artist page and The Juggler object page — technique notes tied to a specific work.
- Art Institute exhibition and dualities article — themes and conservation techniques in public web form.
Suggested reading order
- Britannica biography (free, short outline).
- NMWA artist profile and The Call object page.
- MoMA Juggler object page.
- Art Institute dualities article.
- Science Fictions catalogue, then Nonaka’s Mexican Years.
- Varo’s own writings in On Homo rodans and Other Writings.
- Spanish readers: El hilo invisible and Caicedo Vilariño’s Remedios.
Sources
- Encyclopaedia Britannica, Remedios Varo
- National Museum of Women in the Arts, Remedios Varo
- NMWA, La llamada (The Call)
- NMWA, The Magic of Remedios Varo (2000)
- Art Institute of Chicago, Remedios Varo: Science Fictions
- Art Institute of Chicago, The Dueling Dualities of Remedios Varo
- Art Institute publication, Remedios Varo: Science Fictions catalogue
- MoMA, Remedios Varo artist page
- MoMA, The Juggler (The Magician), 1956
- INBAL press note on Museo de Arte Moderno Varo holdings