Leonora Carrington

Leonora Carrington (born April 6, 1917) is a the United Kingdom -born artist, a surrealist painter and a novelist.

Biography

Carrington was born in Clayton Green, South Lancaster, Lancashire, England. Born into a wealthy family (her father was a textile magnate). Carrington was educated by governesses, tutors and nuns, but was expelled from many schools for her rebellious behavior 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 book to read by Aldous Huxley Eyeless in Gaza (1936), 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.

Surrealist poet and patron Edward James was an important champion of her work in Britain: he bought many of her paintings, and in 1947 arranged a show for her work at Pierre Matisse’s Gallery in New York.

Relationship with Max Ernst

Carrington met Max Ernst at a party in London in 1937, when she was 20. The artists bonded and returned to Paris together where Ernst promptly separated from his wife. In 1938 they left Paris and settled in Saint Martin d’Ardèche in the Provence region, of the south of France. The new couple collaborated and supported each other’s artistic development. With the outbreak of World War II, Max 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. After Ernst’s arrest, Carrington fled to Spain. The stress prompted a breakdown in Madrid and her parents had her institutionalised. 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

Carrington arranged passage out of Europe with a Mexican diplomat, Renato Leduc, who was a friend of Picasso. She had to marry the diplomat as part of the travel arrangements. Mexico gave Carrington the space and opportunity to sculpt and to paint, and – with its Aztec and Mayan history and its cult of the dead – a fresh and rich seam of inspiration. She met Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera and the artist to whom, apart from Ernst, she has been closest in her life, Remedios Varo. She lives and works in Mexico and New York.

In Mexico she later married Emericko Weisz, a Hungarian photographer. They had two sons: Gabriel Weisz, an intellectual and a poet and Pablo Weisz, a surrealist artist and a doctor.

References

• The Guardian (2007), “Leonora and me”
• Wikipedia, “Leonora Carrington”
• Artcyclopedia, “Leonora Carrington”