Las Pozas ("the Pools") is a sculpture garden built by Sir Edward James, more than 2,000 feet (610 m) above sea level, in a tropical rain forest in the mountains of Mexico. It includes more than 80 acres (320,000 m2) of natural waterfalls and pools interlaced with towering Surrealist sculptures in concrete.
Las Pozas is near the village of Xilitla, San Luis Potosi, a seven-hour drive north of Mexico City. In the early 1940s, James went to Los Angeles, and then decided that he "wanted a Garden of Eden set up . . . and I saw that Mexico was far more romantic” and had "far more room than there is in crowded Southern California”. In Hollywood in 1941, his lifetime friend and cousin from Paris, British born Magic Realist painter Bridget Bate Tichenor encouraged him to search for a surreal location in Mexico to express his diverse esoteric knowledge.
