Enter the Twisted World of Overlooked Surrealist Bona de Mandiargues
Jo Lawson-Tancred, artnet
May 2025
I am self-taught and ignorant, but my knowledge is that of a magician,” the Italian artist Bona de Mandiargues once said. In her hands, the avant-garde experiments of Surrealism took on darker, more subversive, and self-exposing edge. She was known and admired by leading Surrealists of her day, but she also stood apart for her highly idiosyncratic practice, characterized by disturbing, monstrously erotic works that are rich with symbolism, esoterica, and references to the occult. They stick in the mind long after they are viewed. […]