“Tailleur pour dames” (1957) by Remedios Varo 

After a decades-long fascination with abstract geometrics, the art world is, once again, warming up to Surrealism. 

Last week, for example, two important museums, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and the Toledo Museum of Art in Ohio, acquired works by the great Mexican surrealist Remedios Varo.

Surrealism is one of my favorite genres because it offers the aesthetic pleasures of representational art along with thought-provoking inconsistencies. The above image is a good example. It depicts a tailor’s showroom, where four women are outfitted in garments that appear to be in a state of transformation. A dress converts into a boa. A scarf becomes a sea. A purple cape floats into the air…