IN MEMORY OF MARIE WILSON-VALAORITIS
January 19, 2018
"A minute of surrealist silence": this is how a Greek newspaper titled its article dedicated to Marie Wilson-Valaoritis who passed away on October 17, 2017 in Athens at the age of 95. A life devoted to art, a life and work that few people currently know, even the Greeks, even the inhabitants of Kolonaki, the elegant district of the Athenian capital where Marie Wilson, wife of the great Greek surrealist writer, perhaps the last survivor of this movement, Nanos Valaoritis, had resided for more than twenty years. This great lady of surrealism was born on August 4, 1922 in Cedarville, a Californian city. Her grandfather was a pastor and her grandmother the delicate wife of a priest who collected Indian objects, handmade. Marie studied at Sacramento College specializing in art, then received a scholarship to continue her studies at Mills College during the years 1942-1944. It was there that she obtained a degree in Fine Arts. After the end of this cycle of studies, she moved to Los Angeles where her grandfather's sister resided and worked there in a weapons manufacturing factory. Shortly after, she received a new scholarship, however given on condition that she work as a teacher at Mills College, while she continued her studies in parallel at the University of Berkeley in California. She also worked as an art teacher at Sacramento gymnasium for two years, then gave courses to peripheral university students at the Oakland museum.
Until that time, her training in painting (or, if you will, in Fine Arts in general) can only be characterized as conventional. However, everything will change for her when she meets Jean Varda, who will become her patron. A Greek expatriate, adventurer, Varda had worked in Paris with artists such as Georges Braque and Joan Miró. While the artists of the time – who broke with forms and symmetry – did not know how to teach (they just showed their paintings and said "do it like this"), Varda possessed all the artistic background and instilled in her the principles of modern art.