México 1939 - 1940

Before her arrival in Mexico in 1939, Rahon was close to André Breton and his group of surrealists, to which she affiliated herself, along with her husband Wolfgang Paalen, in 1935. At that time, her production focused on writing poetry. In 1936, she published her first book, "À même la terre," and in 1938, "Sablier couché," her second collection of poems. These volumes were illustrated by Yves Tangaie and Joan Miró.

In 1939, Rahon and Paalen, along with Eva Sulzer, embarked on a journey to the American continent with the primary purpose of visiting the northwest coast of the United States, Canada, and Alaska, and studying the indigenous art of that region. Before leaving Europe, Rahon met Frida Kahlo in Paris; from that moment, they began to forge a significant friendship. After their trip through British Columbia, towards the end of the summer, the European artists decided to accept an invitation that Kahlo had extended to Rahon to visit Mexico. When they arrived in September, they could hardly imagine that Mexico City would soon become a global capital for surrealists in exile or, in Rahon's particular case, that she would live permanently in the country until her death in 1982.

During her journey to the American continent and upon her arrival in Mexico, Alice Rahon began her plastic production. She publicly exhibited her early works in 1940 as part of the International Surrealism Exhibition at the Mexican Art Gallery of Inés Amor. According to the gallery owner, Rahon was an essential figure in the exhibition's assembly, along with Paalen and the Peruvian poet César Moro. Her early works are generally watercolors—some depicting sites and places from her 1939 trip—while others are images that refer to plastic automatism techniques or evoke an archaic aesthetic, reminiscent of caves, cave paintings, a complex artistic phenomenon that fascinated Rahon since she visited the Altamira caves in 1933.