Alice Rahon facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Alice Rahon
Alice Rahon, photograph by Man Ray
Born	Alice Marie Ivonne Philippot (1904-06-08)8 June 1904 Chenecey-Buillon, France
Died	1987 (aged 82–83) Mexico City, Mexico
Nationality	French-Mexican
Known for	Painting, Writing
Movement	Surrealism
Spouse(s)	Wolfgang Paalen, 1934, ending in divorce Edward Fitzgerald, ending in divorce

Alice Rahon (born Alice Phillipot, June 8, 1904 – September 1987) was a talented French and Mexican artist and poet. Her work helped start a new art style called abstract expression in Mexico. She began her career as a Surrealist poet in Europe. Later, she moved to Mexico and started painting.

Alice Rahon was a very active artist from the late 1940s to the 1960s. She showed her art often in Mexico and the United States. She had many friends in the art world in both countries. Her art kept some ideas from Surrealism, but it was also very new and creative. She used abstract shapes and special techniques like sgraffito (scratching through paint) and adding sand for texture. In her later years, she became quite isolated due to health problems. Even though she had big art shows in 1986 and 2009, she is not as well-known today, despite her important role in modern Mexican art.

Alice Rahon: Her Life Story

Early Life and Challenges

Alice Marie Yvonne Philppot was born on June 8, 1904, in Chenecey-Buillon, a small town in eastern France. She had many happy memories of her childhood summers and holidays in Brittany, especially at her grandparents' house in Roscoff. She also loved visiting the beaches of Morlaix.

When Alice was about three years old, she had a serious accident. This accident affected her for the rest of her life. She had to lie down for a long time to heal. This meant she couldn't play with other children, even her younger sister, Geo. Instead, she spent her time in the family garden reading, writing, and drawing. This feeling of being alone grew stronger when she had another accident at age twelve. These events made her feel fragile, and she often preferred to be by herself, creating imaginary worlds. For her whole life, she walked with a slight limp and some pain.

Discovering Art and Travel

As a young woman, Alice lived in Paris with her sister. There, they explored the exciting art scene. In 1931, she met an artist named Wolfgang Paalen, and they married in 1934. Through him, she became part of the Surrealism art movement. She started publishing her poetry under the name Alice Paalen. She also met many other artists, including Eva Sulzer, a Swiss photographer who became a lifelong friend.

Her marriage to Paalen also led her to travel a lot, which she loved. In 1933, they visited the ancient cave paintings at Altamira in Spain. In 1936, she traveled to India with poet Valentine Penrose. Both of these trips greatly influenced her life and art. She even named two of her cats Vishnu and Subhashini later in life! She continued to travel widely, visiting places like Alaska, Canada, the United States, and Lebanon, as well as many parts of Mexico.

A New Home in Mexico

In 1939, Alice, Paalen, and Sulzer were invited to Mexico by famous artists André Breton and Frida Kahlo. Before arriving in Mexico City, they explored Alaska, British Columbia, and the U.S. west coast. Paalen was very interested in the art of the native people there. They finally arrived in Mexico City and stayed in a hotel in the San Ángel area.

Alice quickly became good friends with Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera. She and Frida shared similar experiences, like having fragile bodies and not being able to have children. They both used art and writing to express themselves. This special friendship inspired Alice to create a painting called La balada para Frida Kahlo (The Ballad for Frida Kahlo). Because they loved Mexico so much and World War II had started in Europe, Alice and Paalen decided to stay in Mexico permanently. Alice became a Mexican citizen in 1946.

Later Life and Friendships

In 1947, Alice and Paalen divorced. She then started using the name Rahon and married Edward Fitzgerald. However, this marriage ended a few years later after they worked on a film together. After that, Alice's social life focused on her many friends from the art world, writers, and people who had moved from Europe.

By the 1950s, her friends included famous artists like Rufino Tamayo, Carlos Mérida, and Henry Moore, as well as writers like Octavio Paz and Anaïs Nin. She also stayed in touch with artists in New York and California. Alice continued to travel often, partly for her art shows in the United States and Mexico. She also visited many Mexican cities and spent a lot of time in Acapulco. She was a strong swimmer, which was a comfort to her because she moved more easily in water than on land.

In 1967, Alice had another accident, falling down stairs. This injured her spine. She refused medical help, saying doctors had caused her enough pain as a child. This injury made her live more and more by herself. She had an art show in 1975 and a big show of her past works in 1986. But in her last years, she lived mostly alone in her house in Tlaquepaque, Mexico. Only a few close friends, like Eva Sulzer, visited her. She was surrounded by memories: books signed by famous writers, poems by Pablo Picasso, letters from Henry Moore, and old photos.

By 1987, Alice could no longer take care of herself at home and moved to a nursing home. She passed away four months later in September 1987.

Alice Rahon: Her Artistic Journey

From Poet to Painter

Alice Rahon's first artistic passion was poetry. She often wrote about the landscapes and scenes from her childhood. She also wrote about her physical challenges and feelings of longing.

After moving to Mexico in 1939, she began to paint. At first, she used watercolors, inspired by the bright colors of Mexico. Most of her later paintings were done with oil paints. She also created drawings, collages, and art objects. Her main inspirations were Surrealism, poetry, her travels, and the beauty of Mexico.

Her art has been described as simple and deeply poetic, full of "inner life." Her paintings are connected to Surrealism, but they also show her experiences in Mexico. The way she used colors, light, and landscapes shows her poetic side. You can also see influences from ancient cave paintings and tribal art she saw during her travels. Her paintings were considered very good from the start. They had abstract elements, which were new in Mexico at the time, but they still showed real things, often from nature.

Unique Themes and Techniques

Alice Rahon's paintings explored many themes. These included landscapes, elements from myths and legends, Mexican festivals, and parts of nature. She also painted mythical cities, which represented her inner thoughts, and paid tribute to artists she admired. Water was a common theme, appearing both as shapes and as the color blue. She created series of paintings about rivers, like El Nilo (The Nile) and Rio Papaloapan. She also made paintings to honor artists like Giorgio de Chirico, Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, Joan Miró, and Pablo Neruda. Two paintings dedicated to Frida Kahlo are La balada de Frida Kahlo (painted after Frida's death) and Frida aux yeux d’hirondelle.

While her work was Surrealist, it also showed the beginnings of abstract art in Mexico in the 1940s. She was a pioneer in using sand, sgraffito (a technique where you scratch through a layer of paint to reveal a different color underneath), and other textures on her canvases.

Other Creative Projects

Alice Rahon also explored theater and film. In the late 1940s, she became interested in puppet theater. She wrote a script and designed costumes for a play called Orion, el gran hombre del cielo (Orion, the Great Man of the Sky). This play was not performed during her lifetime. However, it was brought to life in 2009 for a show about her work, using her original notes and drawings.

She also worked on a film with her second husband, Edward Fitzgerald. It was about a magician who lived at the bottom of the sea, called Les Magiciens (The Magicians). This was a long and expensive project. Alice even made and sold food from her kitchen to help pay for it! Years later, the film was finished, but she had separated from Fitzgerald, and the only copy of the film was lost. Only a few pictures from the film still exist.

By the late 1960s, Alice painted less often. She stepped away from the art world. Even though she had a big show of her work in 1986, she was almost forgotten by younger artists and historians. This was despite her important role in the development of Mexican art. However, in 2009, the Museo de Arte Moderno held a major show of her work, bringing her art back into the public eye.

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See Also

In Spanish: Alice Rahon para niños