"Surrealism was an artistic, intellectual, and literary movement led by poet Andre Breton from 1924 through World War II. The Surrealist sought to over throw the oppressive rules of modern society by demolishing its backbone of rational thought. To do so, they attempted to tap into the "superior reality" of the subconscious mind... The Surrealist circle was relatively cohesive, but the individuals within it hailed from a variety of nations, and their artistic approaches were similarly diverse. They believed that automatic drawings unlocked the contents of the subconscious mind, while hyper-real landscape paintings conjured the uncanny imagery of dreams." -- MoMA Learning
"Early Surrealists challenged the constraints of consciousness and rationality in order to liberate the unconscious mind—a “superior reality,” as Breton called it. A fundamental aspect of the Surrealist movement is a mode of expression called “automatism,” which involves the act of automatic or uncensored recording of the thoughts and images that emerge into an artist’s mind. With a focus on tapping into involuntary thought processes and interpreting dreams, Surrealist artwork is not limited to a specific artistic style or technique." -- Park West Gallery
Self Portrait, 1952 by Rosa Rolanda
"Rosa Rolanda was an American-born dancer, photographer, and painter who immigrated to Mexico with her husband, Miguel Covarrubias. Born on September 6, 1985, Rolanda was a self-taught painter, who worked in a variety of media such as gouache, watercolor, and ink, among others. Her photography was influenced by the work of photographers Edward Weston and Tina Modotti, her close relationship to American photographer Nicholas Murray, and her admiration for the surrealist Man Ray. With interests similar to Covarrubias, Rolanda created sublime portraits of the populations she visited throughout her life in Mexico, Tunisia, Bali, and elsewhere. She paid particular attention to representations of Mexican folk art, as expressed in her work and dress. Rolanda died on March 25, 1970 in Mexico City."-- Dallas Museum of Art
"Wife of Miguel Covarrubias, the famed Mexican artist, Rosa Rolanda was Californian by birth and Mexican by choice. After they moved to Mexico together, first having had an affair in New York, she developed her photography skills and later contributed to the surrealist photography scene. Her 1920s/30s series of photograms, which depict surrealist self-portraits, were perhaps her largest contribution to this artistic field and despite also being a painter (albeit not a surrealist one) she is still relatively unknown." -- Culture Trip
To see more of her works: Click here!
Books about Latin American artists:
Latin American Women Artists of the United States by 
Contemporary Latin American Artists by 
Latin American and Caribbean Artists of the Modern Era by
The Magic Flower Game, 1942 by Dorothea Tanning
"Tanning wanted to depict ‘unknown but knowable states’: to suggest there was more to life than meets the eye. She first encountered surrealism in New York in the 1930s. In the 1940s, her powerful self-portrait Birthday 1942 attracted the attention of fellow artist Max Ernst– they married in 1946. Her work from this time combines the familiar with the strange, exploring desire and sexuality. From the 1950s, now working in Paris, Tanning’s paintings became more abstract, and in the 1960s she started making pioneering sculptures out of fabric." -- Tate
"Active for nearly 70 years, Dorothea Tanning began her career as a Surrealist, later moving away from the movement to create the raw prismatic merging of color planes she called "Insomnias". Tanning's earlier works are heavily representational, favoring strong line, shading, and linear perspective. In the 1950s, she began to reveal new overriding preoccupations with luminous color and energy, a quietly energetic composition with only the vaguest hints of figures." -- Artsy
To see more of her works: Click here!
Books on the history of art:
The History of Surrealism by 
The Oxford History of Western Art by 
What About the Way You Love Me?, 2018 by Nathaniel Mary Quinn
"The paintings of Chicago-born Nathaniel Mary Quinn blend sophisticated painting and drawing techniques to achieve the appearance of collage. Considered by the artist as "two-dimensional sculptures", his portraiture is realized from photography, without any preliminary sketches, and frequently represents people and figures from his childhood and his close circle.
His attempt to duplicate a visual physicality on the surface of the canvas externalizes the world of human beings, exploring the complexity and the wide spectrum of the human condition." -- Creative Boom
"Formed from an amalgam of family photographs, images from articles and advertisements, and his own furious brushtrokes and charcoal marks, the men and women who populate his compositions appear as hybrids, at once monstrous and delicate. For Quinn, they are portraits of his fractured family, and images of our multi-faceted selves." -- Artsy
To see more of his works: Click here!
Books on Surrealism at MPL:
Surrealism by 
The history of surrealist painting by