This painting’s titular juggler (or magician) stands on the platform of a carnivalesque cart filled with fantastical objects and animals. He performs before seemingly identical figures robed in a single gray cloak. To produce this composition, Varo worked in the manner of early Renaissance masters: she transposed preparatory drawings onto a gesso-primed panel, which had been scratched to give the surface variation. She also deployed decalcomania, a technique favored by the Surrealists in which materials such as paper or aluminum foil are pressed onto wet paint to transfer a pattern that may then be embellished. This textured effect can be seen in the magician’s garments and in the background trees.

Gallery label from

2024

Medium Oil and inlaid mother of pearl on board
Dimensions 35 13/16 × 48 1/16" (91 × 122 cm)
Credit Gift of Joan H. Tisch (by exchange)
Object number 736.2018
Department Painting & Sculpture

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Remedios Varo

Remedios Varo

Spanish, 1908–1963 3 works online

Raised in Madrid, Varo learned observational drawing from her father and then trained as a painter. Moving to Barcelona and Paris in the 1930s offered liberation from academic painting and family expectations, exposing Varo to modernist thinkers and a close association with Surrealist artists.

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