A Surrealist Premonition: A Balcony, a Table, and Seven Women Artists

A Surrealist Premonition:

Homage to:

Dorothea Tanning (American 1910–2012)

Frida Kahlo (Mexican 1907–1954)

Kay Sage (American 1898–1963)

Leonora Carrington (British 1917–2011)

Lotte Laserstein (German/Swedish 1898–1993)

Meret Oppenheim (German 1913–1985)

Remedios Varo (Spanish 1908–1963)

Image shown above: Studio Shot of myself with A Surrealist Premonition in progress

The Origin of the Gathering

This is a painting based on elements and symbols I found in the paintings of Dorothea Tanning, Frida Kahlo, Kay Sage, Leonora Carrington, Lotte Laserstein, Meret Oppenheim, and Remedios Varo.

I was initially intrigued by the composition in the painting Evening Over Potsdam by Lotte Laserstein, an artist I have recently become acquainted with. I am drawn to the way she expresses her figures, particularly in group settings. Evening Over Potsdam depicts a seemingly casual gathering of friends seated on a balcony overlooking the city of Potsdam—a city Laserstein captured just before it was bombed during World War II. The painting holds a quiet stillness, a moment suspended in time, and I am deeply drawn to works that preserve such fleeting moments.

Lotte Laserstein and the Frozen Moment

Lotte Laserstein was a figurative painter associated with the New Objectivity movement, known for her psychologically nuanced portraits and group scenes. In Evening Over Potsdam (1930), she presents a group of figures poised between intimacy and detachment, with the city unfolding quietly behind them. Painted on the brink of historical devastation, the work carries an uncanny calm—an awareness of time passing without signaling what is to come. That sense of suspended awareness became foundational to my own composition.

Image Shown above: Evening over Potsdam by Lotte Laserstein (German/Swedish, 1898-1993), Oil on panel, 43 x 80 inches

From Potsdam to Premonition

The composition in my painting A Surrealist Premonition is based on Laserstein’s Evening Over Potsdam. Just as in her work, I chose to depict a group of women seated together on a balcony overlooking a city. In my painting, however, the gathering consists of women artists associated with Surrealism, imagined in conversation.

At the center of the scene is Frida Kahlo, who never considered herself a Surrealist and resisted the label, yet remains instantly recognizable. For that reason, she felt essential to this work. Frida functions as the thematic glue that holds the group together. I imagine this gathering as a moment of shared intuition—artists sensing something before it can be named.

Image Shown Above: A Surrealist Premonition by Gabriela Gonzalez Dellosso, Oil on Linen, 60 x 80 in, Private collection

The City as Psychological Landscape

The city behind the figures in my painting, A Surrealist Premonition, is an imaginary construction composed of elements found in Kay Sage’s paintings. Sage is an artist I find deeply mysterious. Her work rarely includes living figures, instead presenting shrouded, ghostlike forms and desolate architectural constructions that resemble familiar structures—buildings, scaffolds, fragments—yet feel emptied of life. Sticks, wires, grids, and boards recur, giving the sense that the inanimate world is in control.

In my painting, Kay Sage is represented at the table by a ghostlike figure seated beside Frida Kahlo. The juxtaposition between Sage’s otherworldly presence and Frida’s vibrancy felt natural and necessary. Frida is shown deep in thought, smoking a cigarette—an intensely human gesture—while Sage’s figure exists beyond the physical. The contrast between the two creates a tension I find compelling.

Figures in Dialogue

At the center of the table is a surrealist object inspired by Meret Oppenheim: a pair of white shoes tied together and presented upside down on a silver platter. The heels are unusual, with shredded, distressed edges. Placed at the center of the table, they become a focal point and an implied subject of discussion.

I extended this motif by allowing plants to grow through the soles of the shoes as the figure of Remedios Varo directs a beam of light onto them using a triangular magnifying lens. This gesture was inspired by Varo’s Creation of the Birds, in which a birdlike figure channels celestial light through a triangular device to bring life into being.

Leonora Carrington appears seated on the far left, positioned much as she depicted herself in her self-portrait seated on a turquoise chair. I sought to capture the wild quality of her hair—reminiscent of a lion’s mane—by allowing the wind in the painting to animate it. I also included the white horse she painted running outside the window in her self-portrait, placing it in the background of my imagined landscape behind her.

The figure at the far right represents Dorothea Tanning, shown pouring a drink, just as in Laserstein’s Evening Over Potsdam. The act of pouring is casual and intimate, grounding the scene. I believe Laserstein may have been referencing Vermeer’s Milkmaid, and I wanted to echo that lineage in my own work.

Dorothea’s dress is inspired by her painting Birthday. I was drawn to the challenge of recreating its fantastical, root-like forms cascading down her body. Rather than depicting her from the front, as Tanning did, I chose to paint her from the back, allowing the dress itself to become the focal point.

There is another subtle nod to Dorothea Tanning on the far left of the painting: the giant sunflower beneath Leonora’s chair. I felt it helped balance the intricate visual activity of the table and the surrounding landscape.

Grounding the Scene

At the foot of the table sits a watchful dog, another reference to Laserstein’s painting. The dog grounds the composition in something familiar. Amid the many distortions of reality in the work, he pulls the viewer in. He is the present. He is with us....almost.