Rahon, Alice, 1904-1987

Alice Rahon (1904-1987), née Alice Marie Yvonne Philippot, was a French-born poet and visual artist. She was a prominent figure in the Surrealist movement, with close personal and working relationships with Surrealist writers and artists, both in Paris and in Mexico. Her life and career can be separated into two periods: poetry in Paris and painting in Mexico. She established herself first as a poet in France before relocating to Mexico City, where she transitioned to producing visual art, primarily painting.

Rahon was born in Chenecey-Buillon, France in 1904 (her birth year is erroneously listed as 1924 on her Mexican passports and customs documents; see: Box 5, Folder 11). Numerous injuries sustained as a child and as a young woman left Rahon immobile and isolated from her peers for extended periods of time. During the lengthy recovery periods, Rahon occupied her time with reading, writing, and drawing, developing the imagination and introspection that influenced her artistic career. She and her sister, Georgette "Geo" Dupin, moved to Paris in the 1920s where Rahon worked as a model and wrote poetry. She had already met and collaborated with photographer Man Ray and fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli when she met artist Wolfgang Paalen in 1931. Their marriage in 1934 introduced her to Paris’s burgeoning Surrealist community and its central figure, André Breton, co-founder and leader of the movement. Breton supported Rahon's early career by financing her first two books of poetry and publishing her work in Surrealist publications. She was the first woman to be published by Éditions Surréalistes and her writings were illustrated by artists within the Surrealist circle, including Pablo Picasso, with whom she had a brief affair. In all, she published three volumes of poetry between 1936 and 1941.

Rahon's life pivoted when she and Paalen accepted an invitation from the Bretons and Frida Kahlo to visit Mexico City in 1939. Rahon, Paalen, and photographer Eva Sulzer first traveled down the west coast of North America, where Rahon was inspired by the artistic styles of indigenous American art, before arriving in Mexico. The breakout of World War II in Europe led the couple to suspend their return to Paris and wait out the war in North America. After the war, Rahon and Paalen decided to remain in Mexico.

It was at the beginning of her life and career in Mexico that Rahon's primary medium transitioned from poetry to painting. Her style was heavily inspired by prehistoric, indigenous American, and Pre-Columbian iconography. She exhibited her paintings in group and solo shows in Mexico and internationally and illustrated the poetry of other writers, as Picasso had done for her in Paris. From 1942 to 1945, Rahon participated in the production of Dyn, the journal founded by Paalen, contributing poetry, prose, drawings, and paintings. Dyn 6 featured an analysis of her paintings by Jacqueline Johnson, a writer and editor for the journal.

Rahon divorced Paalen in 1947 and thenceforth took her mother's maiden name, Rahon, as her own. She married Canadian filmmaker Edward Fitzgerald that same year, but the two divorced in 1960 after making the now lost experimental film, Les magiciens.

The toll of lasting injuries and new ones led Rahon to spend her last years in relative isolation, receding from the public eye and artist circles she had thrived in for a half century. She died in September 1987 in Mexico City.

Sources Consulted:

"Alice Rahon Artist Overview and Analysis". [Internet]. 2024. TheArtStory.orgContent compiled and written by Alexandra Duncan. Edited and revised, with Summary and Accomplishments added by Antony Todd. Available from: https://www.theartstory.org/artist/rahon-alice/First published on 08 Aug 2022. Updated and modified regularly[Accessed 10 Apr 2024]

Alice Rahon Online Art Archive. "Biography" Alice Rahon. Nd. https://www.alicerahon.org/biography.

Alonso, Idurre (originally written by Annette Leddy), "Acquisition Approval Form for 'Alice Rahon (French, 1904-1987),'" accession no. 2021.M.10, 23 December 2015.

Frérot, Christine. Alice Rahon et le Mexique: La révélation de l'art. Paris: Riveneuve, 2021.