The popular and cosmic art of Maruja Mallo

SantanderSalvador Dalí said of Maruja Mallo that she was "half angel, half shellfish." Ramón Gómez de la Serna defined her as a "little witch" and an "artist with fourteen souls." And Federico García Lorca affirmed that her paintings were the ones he had ever seen painted "with the greatest imagination and sensuality." Maruja Mallo (Viveiro, 1902 - Madrid, 1995) is remembered as an unclassifiable figure: she was cultured, cosmopolitan, talkative, and entertaining, and, at the same time, a humble, meticulous, and rigorous artist. Throughout her career, Mallo – whose real name was Ana María Gómez González – was an unattainable talent, as can be seen in the major exhibition that the Botín Center in Santander dedicated to it until September 14, entitled Maruja Mallo. Mask and Compass. Paintings and drawings from 1924 to 1982.

With the five magnificent paintings of festivals that open the exhibition, reunited for the first time since 1928, Mallo celebrated the vibrant modern life that was taking shape ahead of him, leaving behind the dark Spain. And, in parallel, he never stopped asking existential, scientific, and cosmic questions, sometimes with images reminiscent of those of the Swedish artist. Hilma af Klint"We owed a historic debt to Maruja Mallo," says Manuel Segade, director of the Reina Sofía Museum, who is co-producing the exhibition. "It's a source of pride to recognize her," he adds. "She's not an outsider of her time, but rather she made the greatest contribution to the visual imagery of the Generation of '27. She was a fundamental artist of the avant-garde and was recognized by her generation in the 1930s, even though the environment was misogynistic."

Mask and compass It is Maruja Mallo's most ambitious exhibition: it includes more than 120 works, of which 90 are paintings. This is a very significant figure because it represents nearly 80% of her legacy (a controversial catalogue raisonné attributes only 147 paintings to her). Curiously, two of the paintings are by filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar, who is such an admirer that he gave Mallo his surname to the filmmaker inspired by himself who plays Antonio Banderas in Pain and glory"When you see a single work, it may seem anecdotal, and it's only when you begin to see more that you understand that Maruja Mallo's work is incredibly complex and mysterious," explains the exhibition's curator, Patricia Molins, a member of the Madrid museum's temporary exhibitions team. "Mallo is the most unique, the most heterogeneous, and the most fascinating of the Spanish avant-garde," adds Bárbara Rodríguez, director of exhibitions and the collection at the Centro Botín.

A triumphant debut

Mallo's first exhibition in 1928, with the series of festivals, was sponsored by the philosopher Ortega y Gasset and represented a dazzling launch. "These paintings were a surprise," says Molins. "She conceived of the artist as an intellectual who had to respond to the needs of the nation in a time of crisis, such as the end of Primo de Rivera's dictatorship and the arrival of the Republic. There were a lot of structural changes in Spain, and she believed she also had to respond;

During those same years, Mallo had a turbulent relationship with Rafael Alberti. After a breakup, they resumed it because the Andalusian poet had read a headline that said Mallo had been in a traffic accident and that Mauricio Roësset, Mallo's friend who was driving the car, believing he had killed him, had committed suicide. Finally, Alberti left Mallo for good and went to Mallorca with Maria Teresa León.

Mallo's surrealist paintings, including Skeleton and Soil and feces, are among the most heartbreaking: "What she is really interested in is the destructive capacity of surrealism. Mallo believes that the world must be cleansed of the outdated things that Dalí, Lorca and their companions at the Residencia de Estudiantes called The putrid ones to create a new order," says Molins. "The paintings respond to the zero degree of life, which are the wasteland, the skeletons, the human footprints, the man who is present through his footprints and not man as a living being," explains Molins. religion, as completely obsolete worlds, which must be ended. And this coincides with the pre-republican crisis and the personal crisis that she suffered after separating from Alberti."

When the Civil War broke out, Mallo, who had become involved in the republican cause, was one of the most admired artists in the state. She was able to leave the state to give some lectures in Buenos Aires thanks to the intervention of the poet Gabriela Mistral, and she remained in Argentina until 1962. "Saying the name of Maruja Mallo in 1942 was something dangerous, and proof of that is the fact that Jiménez Caballero, who was the ideologist of winning the war on the battlefield and that they could not do what "Lorquita and Marujita" did and lose it in the field of culture," Molins recalls.

Among the first works that Mallo produced in Argentina is the series The surprise of the bread, The result of the impact she felt when a group of women begging for bread at the May Day demonstration made on her. "What she did during these years can't be called propaganda, because she was never political in the sense of being part of a party, or of directly promoting it, as Alberti and many others did; rather, she defended and honored the working class as part of a demonstration of faith in a harmonious world after the war," says Molins. "She always worked with the idea of overcoming diversity, gender, and class," she emphasizes. The latter can be seen in a series of paintings featuring plants and hybrid characters—humans, plants, and animals, women, and nature. "At that time, it was believed that the future of a progressive and perfected humanity was based on absolute hybridization," Molins points out.

The return from exile

Although she began to think about returning to Spain in the late 1940s, Mallo didn't return until 1962. "I think she was a little afraid, because Ramón Gómez de la Serna had come back thinking about staying, and he had returned to Argentina. The exiles from Spain had the day they had followed current events, they didn't exist. We didn't study them in the school of exile, that is to say, they didn't exist," explains the curator.

Mallo remained active until the 1980s, when members of the Movida Madrileña (Madrid Movement) adopted her as one of their muses. The tour concludes with a video of the interview with Paloma Chamorro on one of the program's editions. Images"She wasn't made up like a door; for her, putting on makeup was like plasticizing herself, turning into a statue," Molins warns. After Santander, the exhibition will be on view at the Reina Sofía Museum starting October 7.