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Artist

MARUJA MALLO

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Artist

MARUJA MALLO

MARUJA MALLO - Artists - Ortuzar

Biography

Maruja Mallo’s paintings arrange statuesque figures within abstract and deeply textured landscapes, conveying the vibrant and joyous chaos of 20th century Spanish culture. In her condensed yet tumultuous portraits of urban life, Mallo shows a world turned upside down. The artist weaves together unlikely interactions among diverse groups of people and traditions, transforming city landscapes into sites of subversion where traditional hierarchies of gender and class and “low” and “high” culture are parodied and masqueraded. 

Mallo became a central figure in the Generation of 27’, an interdisciplinary group of the Spanish avant-garde that included Surrealist figures like Salvador Dalí, Federico García Lorca, Luis Buñuel and the Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset. After meeting the Uruguayan painter and theorist Joaquín Torres-García in 1933, Mallo’s early Surrealist sensibilities merged with an intensified interest in mathematics, structure and abstraction. This stylistic shift—through which she remained committed to local observation—is exemplified by an increasing concentration on compositional clarity and the symmetrical distribution of forms. Some of her most canonical works, such as Arquitectura Humana / El Pescador (1937) and La Red (1939), emerged in dialogue with Torres-García’s advanced theory of painterly construction. Following the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936, Mallo soon found herself in exile. As she left Spain, her contemporaries ostracized her from their artistic milieus, an action which would later result in her erasure from many canonical histories of the Spanish avant-garde. The artist’s associations with iconic figures and movements offer an essential perspective for contextualizing Mallo’s artistic practice within broader political and artistic realms. 

Maruja Mallo (b. 1902, Vivero Spain; d. 1995) worked and lived between Madrid, Spain and Argentina. She was awarded the Gold Medal of Madrid in 1990 and the Gold Medal of the Xunta de Galicia in 1991. Since her death, she has been the subject of a major retrospective and publication organized by the Casa das Artes, Vigo and the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, Madrid (2010), as well as many solo and group exhibitions. Her work is currently in the collections of the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Fundación José Ortega y Gasset, Madrid; Museo Nacional de Artes Visuales, Montevideo, Uruguay; Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires, Argentina. Her work is also in the collection and on permanent view at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid. A catalogue raisonné of Maruja Mallo’s paintings was published by Galería Guillermo de Osma, Madrid, in 2021.

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Works

Works Thumbnails
Maruja Mallo, La Red, 1938

Maruja Mallo, La Red, 1938

Maruja Mallo, Cabezas y Atletas, ca. 1945
 

Maruja Mallo, Cabezas y Atletas, ca. 1945
 

Maruja Mallo, El Mago / Pim Pam Pum, 1926
 

Maruja Mallo, El Mago / Pim Pam Pum, 1926
 

Maruja Mallo, Arquitectura Humana / El Pescador, 1937
 

Maruja Mallo, Arquitectura Humana / El Pescador, 1937
 

Maruja Mallo, Joven negra, 1948
 

Maruja Mallo, Joven negra, 1948
 

Maruja Mallo, Naturaleza Viva, 1942
 

Maruja Mallo, Naturaleza Viva, 1942
 

Maruja Mallo, La Red, 1938
Maruja Mallo, Cabezas y Atletas, ca. 1945
 
Maruja Mallo, El Mago / Pim Pam Pum, 1926
 
Maruja Mallo, Arquitectura Humana / El Pescador, 1937
 
Maruja Mallo, Joven negra, 1948
 
Maruja Mallo, Naturaleza Viva, 1942
 

Exhibitions

Maruja Mallo
Exhibition
Maruja Mallo
Paintings 1926–1952 September 26 – December 1, 2018

Art Fairs

Frieze Masters 2024
Art Fair
Frieze Masters 2024
October 9 – 13, 2024
Frieze Masters 2023
Art Fair
Frieze Masters 2023
October 11 – 15, 2023
Frieze Masters 2019
Art Fair
Frieze Masters 2019
MARUJA MALLO October 3 – October 6, 2019

Press

News

Maruja Mallo in Broccoli Magazine

Sea Monster by Tilly Craig

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News

Ortuzar Projects at Frieze Masters 2019

Maruja Mallo Presentation

September 19, 2019

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News

Maruja Mallo Featured in Art in America

Surrealist Women by Ara H. Merjian

December 1, 2018

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News

Maruja Mallo Reviewed in the New York Times

What to See in New York Art Galleries This Week

November 7, 2018

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News

Maruja Mallo Essay by Estrella de Diego

Maruja Mallo: Far More than a Surrealist Painter

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News

Maruja Mallo Featured in T Magazine

The Works of These Female Surrealists Resonate Now More Than Ever

September 5, 2018

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