La Faim (The Hunger)

In 1936, Remedios Varo meets Benjamin Péret, who had come to Spain to fight with the anarchists in the Civil War, on the Aragon front. She became his lover and went to Paris with him, where she joined the circle of André Breton's closest friends. This period, which is when La Faim was painted, also coincides with her participation in the activities of the surrealist group, especially the Exposition Internationale du Surréalisme in 1938, and Le Revé dans l'Art, in 1939. Later, Varo and Péret separate and in 1947 she travels to Venezuela as part of a scientific expedition, where she works drawing insects for a health campaign to combat malaria.
La Faim (1938) is one of this artist's two paintings that became part of the private collection of André Breton, who kept them with him until his death. In a certain way, La Faim shares content with the surrealist figures created by Picasso in 1929 and 1930, which feature prominent and voracious teeth. In addition to the artistic value of this piece by Varo, one of the few in which the author cultivates forms closer to geometrical abstraction than to her usual organic shapes, its historical and documentary importance is also significant, as it formed part of the collection of the founder of surrealism.

Paloma Esteban Leal