Leonora Carrington was a
British-born Mexican artist, a
surrealist painter and a novelist. She lived most of her life in Mexico City died she was , 94..
(6 April 1917 – 25 May 2011)
Early life
Carrington was born in
Clayton Green,
Chorley,
Lancashire,
[2][3] England. Her father was a wealthy textile manufacturer
[4][2]; her mother was Irish.
[2] She also had an Irish nanny, Mary Cavanaugh, who told her Gaelic tales. Leonora had three brothers. Places she lived as a child included a house called Crookhey Hall.
[5]
Educated by governesses, tutors and nuns, she was expelled from two schools, including
New Hall School,
Chelmsford,
[6] for her rebellious behaviour until her family sent her to Florence where she attended Mrs. Penrose's Academy of Art. Her father was opposed to an artist's career for her, but her mother encouraged her. She returned to England and was presented at Court, but according to her, she brought a copy of
Aldous Huxley's
Eyeless in Gaza (1936) to read instead. In London she attended the
Chelsea School of Art and joined the Academy of
Amédée Ozenfant.
She saw her first Surrealist painting in a
Left Bank gallery in 1927 (when she was ten years old), and met many Surrealists, including
Paul Éluard. She was already familiar with Surrealism from
Herbert Read's book.
[citation needed]
Leonora Carrington found little encouragement from her family to forge an artistic career. Matthew Gale, curator at
Tate Modern, singled out Surrealist poet and patron
Edward James as the only champion of her work in Britain. James bought many of her paintings, and in 1947 arranged a show for her work at
Pierre Matisse's Gallery in New York. Some works are still hanging at his former family home, now West Dean College in
West Dean, West Sussex.
[7]
Max Ernst
Carrington saw
Max Ernst's work in the 1936
International Surrealist Exhibition in London, and was immediately attracted to the Surrealist artist before actually meeting him.
She met Ernst at a party in London in 1937. The artists bonded and returned together to Paris, where Ernst promptly separated from his wife. In 1938 they left Paris and settled in
Saint Martin d'Ardèche in the south of France. The new couple collaborated and supported each other's artistic development. With the outbreak of World War II, Ernst was arrested by French authorities for being a "hostile alien." Thanks to the intercession of
Paul Éluard, and other friends including the American
journalist Varian Fry, he was discharged a few weeks later.
Soon after the Nazi occupation of France, Ernst was arrested again, this time by the Gestapo. He managed to escape and flee to America with the help of
Peggy Guggenheim, a sponsor of the arts.
[8] After Ernst's arrest, a devastated Carrington fled to Spain. Paralyzing anxiety and growing delusions culminated in a final breakdown at the British Embassy in Madrid. Her parents intervened and had her institutionalized. She was given
cardiazol, a powerful
anxiogenic drug that was eventually banned by the
U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and other authorities. After being released into the care of a nurse who took her to
Lisbon, Carrington ran away and sought refuge in the Mexican Embassy. Meanwhile, Ernst had been extricated from Europe with the help of Peggy Guggenheim, but Ernst and Carrington had experienced so much misery that they were unable to reconnect.
Mexico
Following the escape to Lisbon, Carrington arranged passage out of Europe with
Renato Leduc, a Mexican diplomat who was a friend of
Picasso and who had agreed to marry Carrington as part of the travel arrangements to help her. Events from that period would inform her work perhaps forever. She lived and worked in Mexico after spending part of the 1960s in New York City.
[3]
In Mexico she later married
Emericko Weisz. They had two sons:
Gabriel Weisz, an intellectual and a poet, and
Pablo Weisz, a surrealist artist and doctor.
[9]
Leonora Carrington died in Mexico City on Wednesday May 25, 2011, while hospitalized due to complications from pneumonia.
Work
The first important exhibition of her work appeared in 1947 at the
Pierre Matisse Gallery in New York City. Leonora Carrington was invited to show her work in an international exhibition of Surrealism where she was the only female English professional painter. She became a celebrity almost overnight. In Mexico she authored and has successfully published several books.
[10] The first major exhibition of her work in the UK for twenty years took place at
Chichester's
Pallant House Gallery,
West Sussex, from 17 June to 12 September 2010 as part of a season of major international exhibitions called
Surreal Friends, celebrating the place of women in the Surrealist movement. Her work was exhibited alongside pieces by her close friends the Spanish painter
Remedios Varo (1908–1963) and the Hungarian photographer
Kati Horna (1912–2000).
Carrington was one of the last living Surrealist painters of her era. In 2005,
Christie's auctioned Carrington's "Juggler".
[11] The realized price was US$713,000, which set a new record for the highest price paid at auction for a living surrealist painter.
Books
By Carrington
- La Maison de la Peur (1938) - with illustrations by Max Ernst
- Une chemise de nuit de flanelle (1951)
- El Mundo Mágico de Los Mayas (Museo Nacional de Antropología, 1964) - illustrated by Leonora Carrington.
- The Oval Lady: Surreal Stories (Capra Press, 1975)
- The Hearing Trumpet (Routledge, 1976)
- The Stone Door (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1977)
- The Seventh Horse and Other Tales (Dutton, 1988)
- The House of Fear (Trans. K. Talbot and M. Warner. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1988)
- Down Below ( Chicago,Black Swan Press, 1972; renewed edition 1988)
Featuring Carrington
To see more of who died in 2010 click here
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