In this article I invite you to know part of the life of Maruja Mallo a great woman who liked to call herself "Marunica” She was a figure that was ahead of her time, since she declared herself a feminist and together with several artists and intellectuals of the generation of 28 they designed several paintings. She as well as one of the main founders of surrealism.
Maruja Mallo
Called the good witch, the surrealist painter known as Maruja Mallo, although her real name is Ana María Gómez González, was born in Viveiro, Lugo, an autonomous community of Galicia, on January 05, 1905, and died in the capital of Spain, Madrid, on January 06. February of the year 1995.
She was one of the Spanish surrealist painters who is considered one of the artists of the generation of 1927 within the so-called Spanish interior avant-garde.
The surrealist painter Maruja Mallo was also known as Marúnica, a woman who personified freedom, rebellion and independence, since she was known as a free and independent woman. She that she did not pay attention to the negative comments and criticism of the time she lived.
Maruja Mallo was a pioneer and a feminist symbol who never abandoned the fight and defense for freedom and gender equality. Similarly, the surrealist painter Maruja Mallo was considered one of the shadow artists. In this way, she integrates the group known as the generation of 27 as one of the main figures.
He is also considered one of the main figures of The Hatless. Name that bears a well-known group of Spanish women who were artists and thinkers of the generation of 27. This group of women rebelled against the conventions of the time, opposing any social ties that were imposed on them. That is why it was a golden age for these artists and Maruja Mallo was one of the female creators and intellectuals of the moment.
Early life of the surrealist artist
Being the fourth daughter of fourteen siblings who had the couple formed by Justo Gómez Mallo from Madrid who worked as an official of the Customs Corps and María del Pilar González Lorenzo who was a native of Galicia and worked as a housewife. Maruja Mallo, along with her brother, the sculptor Cristino Mallo, who was born in 1905, were the artists of the family who decided to use her father's second surname.
Although their father's job as a Customs officer made it necessary for them to move from home every so often. The family had to reside in the city of Avilés in that locality from 1913 to 1922. At that time the painter Maruja Mallo began her artistic training at the School of Arts and Crafts and in private studios.
In that school he met and established a great friendship with the Avilesian painter Luis Bayón. At the School of Arts and Crafts they shared many ideas and works together. For the year 1922, the painter Maruja Mallo is 22 years old and must move with her family to the city of Madrid, in the capital of Spain she enters to study at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando there she remained until the year of 1926.
Similarly, his brother Cristino Mallo studied at the San Fernando Royal Academy of Fine Arts from 1923 to 1926. Although both also attended the Julio Moisés Free Academy.
While in the capital, the surrealist painter interacts with artists, filmmakers and writers of great stature such as Concha Méndez, Salvador Dalí, Ernesto Giménez Caballero, Gregorio Prieto, Federico García Lorca, Margarita Manso, Luis Buñuel, María Zambrano or Rafael Alberti, all They belong to the generation of 27.
With the Spanish writer Rafael Alberti, she will maintain a love relationship. But she is finished until that writer she meets the Spanish writer María Teresa León. The painter Salvador Dalí is going to define the painter Maruja Mallo as half Angel and half shellfish. At that time, Maruja Mallo was a regular visitor to the Lyceum Women's Club. An anecdote that exists about the club is that many women from that place called them the women of the group The Hatless.
In 1927, the mother of the artist Maruja Mallo died, for which the surrealist painter decided to teach at the first Escuela de Vallecas, teaching a "plastic, poetic" proposal by the sculptor Alberto Sánchez and the painter Benjamín Palencia.
In the 20s, the surrealist painter Maruja Mallo worked in various works of art and literary publications, such as La Revista de Occidente, which belonged to the José Ortega y Gasset Foundation. She also worked in the Literary Gazette, which was also known as the Literary Almanac. She also made many book covers.
In the year 1928, José Ortega y Gasset, who was a Spanish philosopher and essayist, organized her first exhibition for the surrealist painter Maruja Mallo at the facilities of the Revista de Occidente, which was a great success for the painter who exhibited ten oil paintings in which It referred to very sunny towns and the bullfighters and manolas stood out. In the same way there were paintings with colored prints of machinery, cinema and sports that were very significant for the time in which she lived.
In the city of Madrid, the exhibition was a great event for society as it marked a cultural milestone. At that time, the paintings made by Maruja Mallo were marked by the line of the new objectivity or the so-called magical realism. That it was theorized in the year 1925 by the German historian and photographer Franz Roh in a book where he details all the minor aspects of this theory.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wb2HXDael7I
Beginning of the Decade of the Thirties and the Spanish Civil War
At the beginning of the 1929s, the painter Maruja Mallo began a period of work with the writer of Spanish origin Rafael Alberti, carrying out several works together, such as testimonies in books such as I was a fool and what I have seen has made two fools (1930). The sets of the drama of Santa Casilda in the year 1930. Sermones y moradas (1932) and Pájara Pinta published in XNUMX.
In this way, the painter Maruja Mallo had a love affair with the writer that ended in 1931. After that, she dedicated herself to painting the series known as Sewers and Bell Towers. She is close to the approaches that she had at the Vallecas School where she was part of that group of artists.
In 1932, the painter Maruja Mallo obtained a pension granted by the institution known as "The Board for the Extension of Studies". With this, Maruja Mallo decides to go to Paris. In that city she meets René Magritte (Belgian Surrealist painter), Max Ernst (German Surrealist artist), Joan Miró (Painter and sculptor representative of Surrealism) and Giorgio de Chirico (Italian painter).
In addition, Maruja Mallo participated in several gatherings with the French writer Andrés Bretón and the French poet Paul Éluard. In that year of 1932, the surrealist painter Maruja Mallo presented her first exhibition in Paris. Which was made in the facilities of the Pierre Gallery.
At that moment, her stage as a surrealist painter begins. At that time, Maruja Mallo's painting began to undergo a radical change, achieving great prestige and mastery. Her fame was so great that the painter became so famous that Andrés Bretón himself bought her painting known as The Scarecrow. Work that was made in the year 1929.
Which was populated by specters that today this work is known as one of the great paintings of surrealism. From there a great friendship was born between Maruja Mallo and Andrés Bretón who put her in contact with Jean Cassou (French writer), Pablo Ruiz Picasso (Spanish painter and sculptor), Louis Aragón (French poet and novelist), Jean Arp (Franco-German sculptor ) and with the Abstraction-Création group, of which the painter Joaquín Torres García was a member.
In the year 1933 the painter Maruja Mallo decides to return to Madrid, Spain. She there she begins to actively participate in the Society of Iberian Artists. An association that was created in 1924 with the purpose of incorporating Spanish art into the avant-garde. In that same year the French government would have bought a painting from the painter Maruja Mallo to be able to exhibit it in the National Museum of Modern Art.
There, the surrealist painter Maruja Mallo begins to be interested in the geometric and internal order of nature. For which it is a quite striking stage of her work. In the same way, Maruja Mallo is very committed to the Second Spanish Republic. She developing a triple teaching dedication since she is teaching drawing classes at the Arévalo Institute. It was there that she won the drawing chair contest.
He also works as a drawing teacher at the Madrid School of Ceramics and at the Madrid School Institute. During that time he designed a set of dishes that have not been preserved. At that time of the design of the plates she had to study mathematics and geometry. In order to apply that knowledge to ceramics.
He begins to frequent the playwright and poet Miguel Hernández Gilabert with whom he begins a love relationship. In addition, as they worked together, they both devised the drama known as The children of the stone. This work was inspired by the events of Casas Viejas and Asturias.
The painter Maruja Mallo had a great influence on the poet and playwright Miguel Hernández, who came to prepare four compositions in which The lightning that never stops. Which was associated under the name of the Image of your footprint. Similarly, there were 18 of the 30 poems he produced that caught the public's attention.
In the year 1934, the famous painter returns to deal with the Chilean poet and politician Pablo Neruda. Since she had met him in Paris. In the year 1935 she works and prepares the scenery for Rodolfo Halffter's opera that became known as The Clavileno. Although this work was never released.
From the year 1936. The surrealist painter begins a constructive stage. While she continued to exhibit her works with various surrealist painters in the city of London and in the city of Barcelona. She also participates in pedagogical missions as a teacher, which took her to the land where Galicia was born.
While in his hometown of Galicia, the civil war breaks out in Spain. Although in that same year the painter she made her third individual exhibition that was organized by the ADLAN group. At the Construction Studies and Information Center located in Carrera de San Gerónimo in the city of Madrid.
The exhibition was made up of a series of sixteen works that I call The Sewers and Bell Towers. It also includes twelve works called Mineral and vegetal architectures. As well as sixteen drawings of Rural Constructions, which for the year 1949 would be published by the Clan Library, with a prologue by Jean Cassou.
Later, in the city of London, together with the Spanish painter Ángel Planells, he would hold an exhibition of various international surrealist works at the New Burlington Galleries in London. But with the concern of the Spanish Civil War, the painter Maruja Mallo decided to go to Portugal.
In that country she was received by the poet and diplomat Gabriela Mistral. At that time she held the position of Chilean ambassador to Portugal. Although the Civil War that broke out in Spain caused serious damage to the works of Maruja Mallo, since her ceramic works were all destroyed.
After a time in Portugal, the poet and diplomat Gabriela Mistral was in charge of helping her so that the painter Maruja Mallo could go into exile in Argentina. Exactly in the city of Buenos Aires. She was also able to receive an invitation from the Association of Friends of Art.
With that invitation, Maruja Mallo gave a series of conferences on popular themes that are used in Spanish art. what was titled Historical process of form in the plastic arts, first in the city of Montevideo and then in the city of Buenos Aires. In this way he begins his exile in South America.
Exile of the Surrealist Painter
When the painter arrives in Argentina specifically to the city of Buenos Aires, she receives a quick recognition, she begins to collaborate in a magazine known by the name of the Sure, this magazine was directed by the writer and essayist Victoria Ocampo.
Jorge Francisco Borges, a famous writer of Argentine short stories and poems, also collaborates with this magazine. Although Maruja Mallo was dedicated to living between Uruguay and Argentina. She there she spends her time designing and painting works of art. She also makes exhibitions in the city of Paris, New York and Brazil.
Maruja begins her exhibitions with one whose title Wheat surprise. There he introduced works such as the Human Architecture. song of spikes y message from the sea The painter also began to paint The Marine Series. He also did it with Lunar Harmonies I use used colors like gray and silver.
Another influence that the painter Maruja Mallo had is the sun that reflected it in the works known as The Terrestrial Series. Where he used ocher and gold colors, leaving very harmonious colors. Similarly, he made The Masks series. To design these realistic works of art, Maruja Mallo was inspired by the syncretic cults of the Americas.
Making his exhibitions he runs into his friend the poet and essayist Alfonso Reyes who had the position of Ambassador of Mexico in Argentina. She was with him until 1938. The year in which he must return to Mexico. On August XNUMX of that same year the work premiered Cantata in the grave. Work that belongs to Federico García Lorca and Alfonso Reyes, the music was placed by Jaime Pahissa. While the scenery was by Maruja Mallo.
During that same year, the Sur magazine published a conference given by the painter Maruja Mallo, on what is popular in Spanish art through his works. That was later published the following year in the book of Editorial Losada.
During the year 1939, the surrealist painter Maruja Mallo decides to travel to Santiago de Chile, since she was invited to give several talks in a series of conferences. In this way she took the opportunity to visit the beaches of Valparaíso. While she was in Argentina. Maruja Mallo left in the Museum of Drawing and Illustration of Argentina. A collection of two temperas on paper.
In that collection he made several drawings of animals, half were real and the other half were fantastic. Over time, the painter began to paint portraits of women, thus giving rise to a style that is the forerunner of pop art in the United States. In the year 1940, Maruja Mallo traveled to the city of Montevideo and visited the Atlantic beaches of Punta Ballena and Punta del Este.
Decides to return to Spain
After the end of the Civil War in Spain, the surrealist painter Maruja Mallo decides to return to her homeland Spain. She moves to the capital Madrid. In the month of October she holds an exhibition of her works at the Mediterranean Gallery. She also returns to drawing cartoons for the Revista de Occidente, which she works for.
As she is a surrealist painter and her paintings attract attention, she is included in many exhibitions and conferences on Spanish painting. That is why she is once again a highly acclaimed figure in the cultural world of the moment.
For the year of 1979 a great exhibition on his works is made in which great works of his last pictorial series titled The Void Dwellers. At the age of ninety-three, the surrealist painter Maruja Mallo died on February 6, 1995. A natural death.
Surrealist Painter Awards and Recognitions
In her career, the well-known painter Maruja Mallo, who was known as a feminist without prejudice and as a friend of great painters such as Salvador Dalí, who told her that she was a woman half Angel and half shellfish. She made a set of her works that took her from figuration to abstraction. Being a woman who won many awards and recognitions among the main ones we have:
- In 1982, Gold Medal for Merit in Fine Arts, awarded by the Ministry of Culture and the Plastic Arts Prize of Madrid.
- In 1990, Gold Medal of the Community of Madrid.
- In 1991 the Medal of Galicia.
- In 1992, on the occasion of his 90th birthday, an exhibition was held at the Guillermo de Osma gallery in Madrid, which showed, for the first time, series of paintings painted during his time of exile in America.
- In 1993, a large retrospective exhibition was held in Santiago de Compostela, which opened the Galician Center for Contemporary Art. Later, the exhibition was transferred to the Museum of Fine Arts in Buenos Aires.
- In 2010 the Casa das Artes de Vigo organized an anthological exhibition in conjunction with the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando.
- In 2017 Maruxa Mallo was recognized with the dedication of the Galician Arts Day 2017 granted by the Royal Galician Academy of Fine Arts (Ragba).
- There are streets named after him in Viveiro, in the Madrid district of Hortaleza, in Almería, Estepona, Mérida, Boadilla del Monte, Guadalajara and Alcázar de San Juan.
Works of the renowned painter Maruja Mallo
From a very young age, the painter Ana María Gómez González, better known as Maruja Mallo, felt very attracted to painting, until she enrolled in the School of Arts and Crafts. That is why currently most of her works rest in the Guillermo de Osma Gallery in the city of Madrid, among the main paintings that are the following:
- The Vervain (1927)
- The fair (1928)
- Song of the Spikes (1929)
- The Footprint (1929)
- Earth and excrement (1932)
- Surprise in the Wheat (1936)
- Figures (1937)
- Head of a Woman (1941)
- Masks (1942)
- Living Natures series (1940)
- The Bunch of Grapes (1944)
- Gold (1951)
- Agol (1969)
- Geonaute (1975)
- Wilderness (1979)
- Concord (1979)
- Mask Three-Twenty (1979)
- Airagu (1979)
- Macro and Microcosm Acrobats (1981)
- Acrobats (1981)
- Protozoa (1981)
- Pantheon (1982)
- Acrobat (1982)
- Protoscheme (1982)
- Races (1982)
- Aether Travelers (1982)
Quotes About Maruja Mallo
Being one of the best painters of the 1928th century, this famous artist is related to great artists, poets, filmmakers, writers and the so-called intellectuals of the generation of the year XNUMX.
She was a friend of several renowned people such as Concha Mendez, Josefina Carabias, María Zambrano, Federico García Lorca, Salvador Dalí, Rafael Alberti (of whom they were a couple), Pablo Neruda and others.
The painter always had plenty of talent and recognition, that is why she enjoys good comments from her generation since many artists gave her great recognition, that is why we will give you some quotes that great artists made towards Maruja Mallo, the great surrealist painter of the XNUMXth century.
«The work of Maruja Mallo has deserved, therefore, the accolade of the Revista de Occidente. And she has deserved it, above all, for the high intrinsic quality of her talent, for her psychological rank, regardless of the pictorial manifestations in which her faculties are expressed, because with those manifestations being valuable and admirable, what really matters in her, as in any other modern artist, it is sheer genius.
The index of pure awesomeness. What again has to tell us, more than the way to say it. And Maruja Mallo first has talent, and then she paints. ».
Antonio Espina, The Literary Gazette, June 1, 1928.
«Maruja Mallo, between Verbena and Espantajo, all the beauty in the world fits inside the eye, her paintings are the ones I have seen painted with more imagination, emotion and sensuality.»
Federico Garcia Lorca
«The strange creations of Maruja Mallo, among the most considerable of current painting, poetic and plastic revelation, original, «Cloacas» and «Campanarios» are precursors of the informalist plastic vision».
Paul Eluard
"YOUR,
you who go down to the sewers where the flowers more flowers are already a few sad spittles without dreams and you die by the sewers that lead to the deserted verbenas to resurrect on the edge of a stone bitten by a stagnant fungus, tell me why the rains rot the leaves and the woods. Clarify this question I have about landscapes. Wake me up."
Rafael Alberti, «Ascension of Maruja Mallo to the subsoil», La Gaceta Literaria 61, 1929
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lESHmDHPXIY
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