MARUJA MALLO: BIOGRAPHY, STYLE AND WORKS - ART - 2025

Ana María Gómez González (1902-1995), better known as Maruja Mallo, was a Spanish painter within the surrealist current. In addition, she was part of the well-known Generation of 27, as one of the artists with a marked innovative style.

Maruja Mallo began to prepare in the arts, especially in painting, from an early age. Later, a family transfer to the Spanish capital put her in contact with great artists and intellectuals. From then on, her professional life began to boom.

Maruja Mallo. Source: See page for author, via Wikimedia Commons

Maruja's artistic work was characterized by the presence of Egyptian art, as well as by geometric shapes. The artist made her paintings with the intention that the emotional part was above reason, which led her to break with what is traditionally established in painting.

Biography

Birth and family

Maruja was born on January 5, 1902 in the town of Viveiro, Lugo, in the bosom of a large traditional family. Her parents were Justo Gómez Mallo, a customs worker, and María del Pilar González Lorenzo. The painter was the fourth of fourteen siblings.

Mallo formation

At the age of eleven, Maruja Mallo moved with her family to Avilés; For work reasons of her father she lived there for nine years, from 1913 to 1922. At that time, in addition to receiving private lessons, she also began studying at the School of Arts and Crafts.

Mallo went to live in Madrid with his family in 1922. There he began to study at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando, from where he graduated in 1926. It was the time of friendship with the Generation of 27; he related to Dalí, Concha Méndez, Luís Buñuel, Rafael Alberti, among others.

First opportunities as a painter

Maruja began to make her way into the artistic world in 1927, the year her mother also passed away. She actively participated in the first Vallecas School, whose objective was to propagate European avant-garde ideas throughout Spain; the initiative came from the sculptor Alberto Sánchez and the painter Benjamin Palencia.

In the same way, the painter did work for printed media such as La Gaceta Literaria and La Revista Occidente, as well as hired her to create the covers of several books. In 1928, with the organization of José Ortega y Gasset, she exhibited ten of her magical realism works with great success.

Creations with Alberti and stage in Paris

At the beginning of the 1930s, the artist began a series of collaborations with the writer and also painter, Rafael Alberti, whom she met in the 1920s, and with whom she also had a romantic relationship. Together they made the illustrations of I was a fool and what I have seen has made me two fools.

At the same time, Mallo painted his work Cloacas y Campanarios. In 1932 he traveled to Paris after a scholarship awarded by the Board for the Extension of Studies. There he made friends with personalities such as Joan Miró, Marx Ernst and others, he also attended the conversations of Paul Éluard and André Breton.

First exhibition in Paris

Mallo got a space in Paris to exhibit his pictorial work. His first exhibition in the city of light was in 1932, at the Pierre Loeb gallery; with these works he began in the surrealist current. His friend Breton acquired the painting Scarecrow, and presented it with painters of the stature of Pablo Picasso.

After having spent two years in France, he returned to Spain. His work was already recognized, both people and organizations requested his paintings. He was also part of the Iberian Artists Society, and began to develop a geometric type art.

The Second Republic and Miguel Hernández

In 1933, the year of the Second Spanish Republic, Mallo dedicated herself to teaching drawing at some institutions, while designing dishes for the Madrid School of Ceramics. At that time she began to relate to the poet Miguel Hernández.

Maruja Mallo's signature: Maruja Mallo, via Wikimedia Commons

Mallo and Hernández had an explosive love relationship, but they also worked together on Los Niños de la Piedra. The painter inspired the poet to write The Ray that does not stop. In the following years the couple grew apart, and Miguel found a different love.

Mallo and exile

In 1936, when the Civil War broke out, the painter was in her native Galicia doing work on the pedagogical missions. During that time she held exhibitions in Barcelona and London, until in 1937 she had to flee and headed for Portugal.

In the Portuguese country, she was received by her friend, the Chilean poet Gabriela Mistral, with her help she went to Buenos Aires. She soon began to resume her life, and gave some lectures on the plastic arts; in Argentina she lived for twenty-five years.

Success in exile

The years that Maruja Mallo spent in exile meant success and growth, but also loneliness. During the first years she worked in some magazines, and was dedicated to a constant creation. She also managed to take her works to other latitudes such as Brazil, Paris and New York.

Of the years away from his homeland were the Terrestrial series and Las mascaras. In 1938 he had the honor of creating the scenery for the play Cantata en la tumba, by Federico García Lorca, who was his friend. The following year his book La popular en la plastica española through my work went on sale.

Dark and light time in New York

There was a long season between the mid-forties and fifties where Mallo's creativity stalled. For this reason, she made a trip to Chile and invited Pablo Neruda to accompany her to Easter Island, to renew and be inspired to carry out work that she had commissions.

Inspiration arrived and with it the opportunity to travel to New York for an exhibition of his art at the Carroll Carstairs gallery. After several years of work, in 1962 she left the Big Apple for Madrid. That was her first trip back to Spain.

Return to Spain and death

Maruja Mallo returned to her country in 1962, but her return was not entirely easy, after twenty-five years of exile, she became an unknown artist. However, she decided to start over, did some exhibitions, and began Los dwellers of the void, her final series as a painter.

During those years in Spain, Mallo was recovering his place in artistic spaces. So much so that they made her several tributes and recognitions, including the Gold Medal of the Community of Madrid in 1990. She died at 93 years of age, admitted to a hospice in Madrid, on February 6, 1995.

Style

The pictorial work of Maruja Mallo was characterized by being mainly surrealist. Being an advanced woman for the time in which she was developed, she managed to break with the common and traditional patterns established, which gave a unique and unparalleled style to her work.

Mallo's main objective was to put reasoning aside, so he captured emotion and feelings in his paintings. He constantly sought to show the history or life behind the real, hence his paintings could sometimes be strange.

Colors

Most of the pictures or paintings created by Maruja Mallo enjoyed color, just like the personality of her painting. Her creativity in combining colors gave her art certain airs of movement, which gave more vitality to her festivals and parties.

Rafael Albrti, Maruja's friend, colleague and partner for a time. Source: Iberia Airlines, via Wikimedia Commons

In his so-called dark stage, between 1945 and 1957, Mallo's color palette also changed shades. Her emotions, and what she felt during that period, led her to paint in grayscale, black and brown colors, which overshadowed her art and the symmetry of her geometry.

Between geometry and feminine strength

Many of Maruja's paintings were framed within the Egyptian, as well as seeking the perfect use of geometric figures. On the other hand, it can be seen that the painter's thought about women was evolved, that is why there are paintings where strength and feminine value are present.

Mallo's free, daring and audacious personality was reflected in his painting. Her strength and daring led her to paint what she wanted, and in the way she wanted it, leaving in each of her works a touch of magic and surprising expressiveness that were the subject of countless criticisms that she omitted.

Plays

- The verbena (1927).

- La kermesse (1928).

- Song of the ears (1929).

- The footprint (1929).

- Earth and excrement (1932).

- Surprise in wheat (1936).

- Figures (1937).

- Head of a woman (1941).

- Masks (1942).

- Living Natures Series (1942).

- The bunch of grapes (1944).

- Gold (1951).

- Agol (1969).

- Geonaut (1965).

- Selvatro (1979).

- Concorde (1979).

- Mask three twenty (1979).

- Airagu (1979).

- Acrobats macro and microcosm (1981).

- Acrobats (1981).

- Protozoa (1981).

- Panteo (1982).

- Acrobat (1982).

- Protoschema (1982).

- Races (1982).

- Travelers of the ether (1982).

References

1. Vilar, E. (S. f.). Maruja Mallo: the rebel muse of the Spanish avant-garde. Spain: Royal Auction. Recovered from: subastareal.es.
2. Maruja Mallo. (2019). Spain: Wikipedia. Recovered from: wikipedia.org.
3. Caballero, M. (2016). María Mallo and her break with traditional painting. (N / a): La Maga Universe. Recovered from: universolamaga.com.
4. De Diego, E. (2017). The avant-garde life of Maruja Mallo. Spain: The Country. Elpais.com.
5. Maruja Mallo. (2019). Spain: Spain is Culture. Recovered from: españaescultura.es.