An exhibition of some 70 artworks by the Spanish artist Remedios Varo will open at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, a destination museum on the coast just north of Copenhagen, this fall. The show, “Painting Magic,” is on view from September 18, 2026, through January 10, 2027, and includes examples of Varo’s paintings, drawings, and photographs. It will subsequently travel to the Moderna Museet in Stockholm.
Varo was born in Spain in 1908 and left for Paris when she was 19, where she fell in with artists like André Breton, Max Ernst, Salvador Dalí, and Leonora Carrington. She settled in Mexico City in the early 1940s, where her career blossomed. She had her successful exhibitions in 1955 and 1958, and died of a heart attack a few years later, in 1963. At the time, she wasn’t particularly well-known outside of Mexico, at least compared to peers like Frida Kahlo and Carrington. The three are often grouped together as the preeminent female Mexican Surrealist painters, though Varo consistently resisted that label.
Below are examples of eight paintings from the Louisiana show, which includes loans from prominent private collections and museums around the world.
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Exploración de las fuentes del río Orinoco
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The Magician or the Juggler
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The Flight
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Woman Leaving the Psychoanalyst’s Office
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Caravan
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Still Life Coming to Life Again
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Star Porridge
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Encounter