Anyone looking for curiosities about his private life, details about his romantic relationships and his morbidity will be disappointed. We discover the correspondence of Maruja Mallo (Viveiro, Lugo, 1902-Madrid, 1995), the surrealist painter who broke the molds. To your catalog raisonné paths have been added retrospectives … at the Botín de Santander Center and at the Reina Sofía Museum, where it can currently be visited and, now, the publication of his letters (Renacimiento publishing house)a gallery edition William of Osmawhich is presented this Monday at the Thyssen Museum. Are 121 letters, many of them unpublishedsent by the artist to 36 recipients. It is surprising that she barely received them: a letter from Antonio Machado and several of Alphonse Reyeswhich are preserved because he made copies of them. Mexican writer and diplomat, he was ambassador to Argentina and Brazil.
The absence of letters to Rafael Alberti, with whom he had a romantic and professional relationship, is surprising.
The first thing that catches the eye is the absence of letters to Rafael Alberti, with whom she maintained a romantic and professional relationship until in 1931 the poet abandoned her and left for Majorca with Maria Teresa Leon. Of the group of 27 and the Student Residence, the one he meets for the first time is Dalí, with whom he coincides at the Academy of Fine Arts. He kept some letter-poems and a fragment of a letter, today in his foundation in Figueras.
There is no match with Lorcanor with Nerudanor with Miguel Hernandez…, friends, some having the right to touch. This epistolary absence is surprising. Didn’t you correspond with them? Or were the letters lost? De Osma told ABC: “I think they don’t exist. “Those were people she saw.” But he did not correspond with them either when he went into exile in Argentina. “No, she cuts, but that’s the way she is. Maruja always looks to the future. “He never had that bitterness that many exiles had.” To her best friend, Concha Mendezhe only sent her one letter, in 1945, in which he asked her about María Zambrano and told her about her successes.
On the left, letter sent by Antonio Machado to Maruja Mallo on October 1, 1938. On the right, letter from Maruja Mallo to Rafael Zabaleta sent from the Hotel Nogaro-Casino Punta del Este, on April 1, 1949.
De Osma highlights the role of Miriam Sainz de la Mazawho made “a fantastic work» research and search for letters in funds such as the Gerardo Diego Archives, the Lorca Foundation, the Dalí Foundation, Buñuel’s family… “We found the letters of Oteizaalmost a little by chance, at its foundation. The letters to Rafael Zabaleta He finds them in the family archives: “He overwhelms her with his triumphs in Paris and New York. »
“When he returned from his exile in Madrid, he had a very intense social life: parties, hunts, cinema screenings”
HAS Gabriela Mistral He admits in a letter that he has had two “miracles” in his life: “One was you and the other Constancio Vieille“. He asks him how he feels about a problem with his eyes, he asks for a photo… When he wins the Nobel Prize for Literature, he sends him a telegram: “My sincere congratulations”. The longest letter is the one sent in 1966 to Luisa Sofiavitchwife of Ramón Gómez de la Serna, with whom Mallo was a very good friend. “Busting a myth It appears from her biographies that when she returned to Spain, she did not go out, that she was under surveillance. Maruja does not feel watched and finds a Madrid that was not sad; has a very intense social life“: parties, hunts, cinema screenings…”, says De Osma.
HAS Ortega and Gasset He wrote her a letter in which he gave his opinion on French painting: “It is the one that interests me the least in the world; It’s impersonal, cold, boring. He also told her: “Don’t forget my pension.” They gave him a scholarship to go to France to study scenography subjects and he wanted to extend his stay there.
Letter from Maruja Mallo to Gregorio Prieto, h. November-December 1927
Maruja is the absolute protagonist of his letters. Was his best agent and publicist. She managed her own marketing and public relations brilliantly. Additionally, he was looking for the best portrait painter in Argentina, Annemarie Heinrichto immortalize it. Your goal: to promote yourself. He speaks several times in his letters of his ambitionshis exhibitions, the successes he has had… And he does not hesitate to send publications and catalogs of his work (notably a monograph edited by Losada) to critics, collectors, museum directors…
“She had impressive courage, I believed in her a lot. She was neither discreet nor shy”
He doesn’t even know many of them. He arrives and aims for the highest. Manda letters to Alfred Barrdirector of MoMA; has Nelson Rockefeller… He strongly invites them to see his exhibitions. “We rightly give it considerable importance. I have always defended the idea that Maruja is an absolutely universal painter,” says Guillermo de Osma. “I had a impressive courage. He believed in her and that helped him a lot in his life, which was not always easy, but he never talks about his trials. Maruja was not neither discreet nor shy. “Advance with all the artillery.” But she is very jealous of her private life, which she does not discuss in her letters.
In none of them does he comment on the assassination of Lorca or other friends. The one with the most political tone is the one he sent in 1937 to Jean Cassou from Buenos Aires. inside calls Franco a “fierce spiritualist killer”. “But she hasn’t seen everything that matters,” warns the gallery owner.
Letter sent by Maruja Mallo to Luisa Sofovich in 1966
Maruja Mallo’s letters, he says, are “chaotic, difficult to decipher», with a particular spelling: commas are points and vice versa, it does not put accents or capital letters, it even commits spelling mistakes. “Some of them were difficult for us to decipher. In fact, there are words in which we put “illegible”. It’s very curious, the letters to Alfred Barr read perfectly. When he wants to, he has great lyrics.
She was obsessed with removing her years, perhaps to be taken more seriously as a painter.
Obsessed with taking yearslies about his age even Carmen Condeher friend, in a letter. He tells her he’s 20 when he’s 28. “I think it’s to seem more important. It may seem incredible that a 20-year-old girl is capable of directing the “Verbenas” series. “If she said she was so young, maybe they wouldn’t take her seriously.” Maruja Mallo he got away. His intense work promoting and marketing his cards has paid off. His work is finally recognized. She is a great painter. But she already knew that.
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