Maruja MALLO and feminism

Maruja Mallo is one of the great figures of Spanish art of the 20th century. An exceptional artist who not only astonished the world for her participation in the renewal of national art, being member of the Generation of 27 and being an active feminist who took part in the emancipation movements of the women. She herself always lived as a modern, empowered and free woman.

In this lesson from unPROFESOR.com we tell you how the life of Maruja Mallo and Spanish feminism through the presence of women in her works and the modern feminine universe in which there are no differences due to gender issues.

Maruja Mallo (1902-1995) is the pseudonym of Ana María Gómez, a Galician artist who was not only one of the great figures of the generation of '27, she also received recognition from artists such as Salvador Dali, Ortega y Gasset, Lorca, Alberti, Éluard, Warhol or Breton.

The genius of Cadaqués defined it with just four words: “Half angel, half seafood”. A surreal definition that tells us about Maruja's unusual talent, her

non-conformist, free and combative character and the Galician origin of it.

Born in Viveiro, in Lugo, Maruja studied at the San Fernando Royal Academy of Fine Arts. There she met Dalí, Lorca or Alberti and she gave samples of her feminism by defending equality between men and women and defending free love. In addition, Maruja was also a member of the group of "no hat", some young intellectuals who broke with what was established by their ideas and for dispensing with this garment considered "decent and decent".

Maruja opted for the surrealismThey go through a colorful stage and another more subdued and dark, to recover the initial harmony and return to the figurative and introduce materials and objects on her canvases.

When the civil war broke out, Maruja Mallo went into exile in Portugal, from there to Chile and Buenos Aires. An escape from Francoism in which Maruja lost friends and loves like the poet Miguel Hernández. She returned from exile in 1962, throwing herself into ceramic work and showing herself more next to the Vallecas school than surrealism.

Maruja Mallo is considered one of the most relevant figures in the process of change towards the "new woman". A process started in Spain in the first third of the 20th century by a group of women influenced by European and American women.

Maruja faced the misogyny of her time, receiving in exchange silenced by traditional Historiography. Currently, this great artist of the 20th century is being recovered and put in the place that she deserves.

In her work, influenced by the vanguards of the time and her own character, women take a leading role showing us a whole feminine universe in which the woman is the muse.

Works by Maruja Mallo and feminism

• In her first works, Maruja opts for monumentalism and presents strong and independent women, muscular and naked, a model far from the model of women imposed by the patriarchal society of the 20s. woman with goat (1927), Cyclist and Woman tennis player (1927) or two women on the beach (1928) are examples of this period, women's sports being one of his sources of inspiration. This trend continues in the Verbenas, celebrations that she portrayed showing the different social classes in the same festive atmosphere.
• In his next series, prints, Maruja is part of the Vallecas School and changes her color to black and white, ocher and green with which she she criticizes everything she hates about society and religious obscurantism.
• Geometry is evident in series such as work religion. In them she creates powerful and powerful images of women with spikes in their hands, as well as portraying women with different ethnic traits. Some works carried out during exile and in these works he extols the feminine beauty of American women.

But the most fascinating new woman was Maruja Mallo herself. An ambiguous character capable of appearing as a femme fatale or with her hair down. garconne and with pants as one of the group of bohemian artists with whom she rubs shoulders as an equal. That ambivalence scandalized the patriarchal system of the time.