A Brief Biography of
Maruja Mallo
Figure 73. Maruja Mallo as a drawing teacher in Arévalo, Spain, in 1933. Archivo Maruja Mallo.
Maruja Mallo (Fig.74) was an extraordinary artist of the 20th century Spanish avant-garde, best known as the “Generation of 27.” That generation comprised some of the most important artists of the time—primarily male poets, painters, and cinematographers including Federico García Lorca, Luis Buñuel, and Salvador Dalí, but also a few female artists like writer Concha Méndez and painter Margarita Manso. Although Mallo was born and spent her childhood in the Spanish northern region of Galicia, she moved to Madrid at the age of twenty to attend the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando. During her studies, the majority of Mallo’s work took up social and political themes and reflected Madrid’s modernist cultural renaissance. Such is the case with her series of Verbenas [Street Fairs, 1927-1929], which she presented at her first exhibition, organized by the Revista de Occidente in 1928 (Fig. 75). From that moment on, her work began to be celebrated by critics who were equally fascinated by the originality of her dynamic and colorful artworks and by what they perceived as an unruly and original personality. Although she spent time with the male artists of her circle, as a woman, they never considered her their intellectual equal. In addition to the “Generation of 27,” Mallo established connections with the Surrealist circle of André Bretón during her stay in Paris in 1931-1932, where she also trained in stage design and exhibited her series of paintings Cloacas y Campanarios [Sewers and Bell Towers, 1930-1932]. (Fig. 76)
After the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936 (Fig. 77), Mallo’s ideological beliefs and the profound impact of the violence of the war led her into exile in Argentina. She settled in Buenos Aires, where she arrived in February of 1937.[1] Once there she continued her series La Religión del Trabajo [The Religion of Work, 1936-1937] (Fig. 78) and was welcomed by a number of intellectuals that facilitated her introduction to the city’s art world.[2] With their assistance, from the first moments of her stay, she began to grant interviews and give lectures in Buenos Aires and Montevideo. Moreover, she soon became an enthusiastic traveler, eager to learn more about Latin America’s geography, art, and cultures. As she only made infrequent mention of these travels to the press, not many details about these trips have been preserved. However, we do know that her most frequent destinations were Chile and Uruguay and that she visited Brazil, Bolivia,[3] and, probably, Venezuela.[4] The result of her journeys crystallized in her series Naturalezas Vivas [Living Natures] and in Cabezas de Mujer [Heads of Women].[5] In October of 1948, she exhibited in New York and, in March of 1950, in Paris. After a decade of decreased popularity and fewer public appearances in Argentina, Mallo exhibited in 1961 at the Galería Mediterránea in Madrid and made a final return to Spain in 1965.[6] Once settled in Madrid, she continued painting until the early 1980s, developing her series Los moradores del vacío [The Inhabitants of the Void, c. 1969-1975] and Viajeros del éter [Ether Travelers].[7] In 1982, the Spanish Ministry of Culture awarded her the Fine Arts Gold Medal for outstanding performance in the arts. She died in Madrid in 1995.
Figure 76. Maruja Mallo in her studio in Madrid, surrounded by her artworks. Photo by Vicente Moreno, 1936. Archivo Moreno. Fototeca del Instituto del Patrimonio Cultural de España, Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte.
[1] Francisco Rivas, “Maruja Mallo, pintora del más allá,” in Maruja Mallo, edited by Juan Pérez de Ayala and Francisco Rivas (Madrid: Galería Guillermo de Osma, 1992): 22.
[2] Among those, Victoria Ocampo (director of the magazine Sur), Alfonso Reyes (a Mexican diplomat) and her friend Ramón Gómez de la Serna played a special role in Mallo’s adaptation to the city.
[3] At least in May of 1944 to participate in La Paz’s Book Week. “La Semana del Libro en La Paz,” La Nación (March 24, 1944). In Central File: Decimal File 735.41, Political Relations Of States, Relations; Bi-Lateral Treaties., Argentina And United Kingdom, July 16, 1940 – September 27, 1944. July 16, 1940 – September 27, 1944. MS Foreign Relations between Latin America and the Caribbean States, 1930-1944: Records of the Department of State Relating to Political Relations Between Latin America and the Caribbean States, 1930-1944. National Archives (United States). Archives Unbound.
[4] According to José María Moreiro, who interviewed Mallo in 1977, she also mentioned Venezuela among the countries she had visited. José María Moreiro, “Maruja Mallo: casi cuanto se de mi…,” ABC Blanco y Negro (July 13, 1977): 76.
Mallo also bragged about her 1945 journey to Easter Island in the company of poet Pablo Neruda, but there is no scholarly consensus on she really doing that trip due to lack of concluding evidence (apparently, Neruda did not visit this island until 1971). Mallo’s photographs of Easter Island could have been taken on Chilean beaches during the trip that she indeed did with Neruda in 1945.
[5] An in-depth analysis of Mallo’s Naturalezas Vivas series can be found in Candelas Gala, “Creative Measurements: Plastic-Dynamic Development in Maruja Mallo’s Naturalezas Vivas,” chap. 3 in Creative Cognition and the Cultural Panorama of Twentieth-Century Spain, 69-96. New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. See also Juan Pérez de Ayala (ed.). Maruja Mallo. Naturalezas Vivas 1940-1944. Madrid: Galería Guillermo de Osma, 2002.
[6] Shirley Mangini, “From the Atlantic to the Pacific,” 100.
[7] To know more about Mallo’s lastest series see Monserrat Siso Monter’s iconographical study “Maruja Mallo en la constelación de Hércules.” Master’s thesis, Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED), 2015.
Web design: Esther Rodríguez Cámara, 2021