Maruja Mallo

(Spain, 05/01/1902 - 06/02/1995)

Born Ana María Gómez González in 1912, Mallo grew up between coastal landscapes and urban environments that would provide early encouragement for her avant-garde experimentation, poetic symbolism and radical reimagining of the modern subject — particularly the modern woman. At once rigorous and exuberant, her work places her among the central protagonists of Spain’s Generation of ’27, even as her legacy long remained overshadowed by exile and historical rupture.

In 1922, she moved to Madrid to study at the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, where she formed close friendships with artists and writers who would shape Spanish Modernism. Distinguishing herself through a sharp intellect, fearless independence and an unwavering commitment to artistic innovation, Mallo held her first solo exhibition in 1928, the success of which established her as a key voice in Spain’s avant-garde community.

As she absorbed influences from Cubism, Surrealism and the metaphysical clarity of Classical art, she synthesised them into her own personal idiom that resisted easy categorisation and reveal her fascination with collective ritual and modern leisure, as well as the tension between order and excess.

Mallo’s art was deeply engaged with the social and scientific debates of her time. She was particularly interested in biology, mathematics and the natural sciences, viewing them as systems capable of revealing hidden structures of reality. With her cool analytical gaze combined with her subversive sense of humour and social critique, this intellectual curiosity became more pronounced on her canvases as she juxtaposed organic matter and architectural forms to critique moral hypocrisy and social decay.

With the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936, Mallo travelled first to Portugal before settling into exile in Argentina. Exile, while profoundly disruptive, also opened new artistic horizons, allowing Mallo to develop a more cosmic and symbolic vision inspired by the natural forms of marine life and her first encounter with the Pacific Ocean. These paintings reflect a synthesis of myth, reality, nature and utopian thought, often centred on powerful, self-possessed female figures that challenge traditional representations.

Despite achieving artistic recognition and influential teaching positions in Argentina, Mallo remained acutely aware of her displacement. She returned to Spain in the early 1960s, finding an art world that had largely forgotten her, yet she continued working to articulate her artistic philosophy with clarity and conviction, eventually leading to renewed scholarly and institutional interest in the 1980s which restored her place within the canon of Spanish Modernism.

Proposing a vision of modernity grounded in imagination and emancipation, the symbolic depth of her work invites viewers to reconsider the relationships between art, society and the human body. Today, Mallo is recognised as a pioneering artist whose work transcends national and stylistic boundaries, and endures as a testament to intellectual freedom, creative courage and the enduring power of artistic reinvention.

Image: Maruja Mallo, Concorde (1979). Pen, wax and gouache on cardboard, 32 x 24.8 cm. Museo Nacional de Arte Reina Sofia, Spain.