A Spotlight On Leonora Carrington, Britain’s Lost Surrealist

Her first marriage saved her from lifelong institutionalisation and brought her to Mexico. Before being shipped off to South Africa via Lisbon, as her parents had planned, she slipped away from her companion and fled to the Mexican embassy. There she married a contact of hers, Mexican poet Renato Leduc, with whom she moved to Mexico. Yet, while her first marriage gave her the escape, her second marriage gave her the stability she seemingly craved. Hungarian Chiki Weisz, remained her second husband until his death in 2007 and with him she shares two sons.

According to the contemporary Mexican writer Chloe Aridjis, who met Carrington when she was a child, her personality seemed unchanged by her extended residence in her adopted country; as a Guardian article reports, she was ‘so extremely British’ that she had postcards of the Queen Mother and Princess Diana pinned to the walls. She also regularly requested that boxes of Yorkshire Tea be brought back for her from Europe.

Carrington’s artwork is more than fantastical, it’s ethereal at times, and multi-faceted. Drawing on various religious elements, as well as Celtic symbolism, magic, alchemy and her love of animals (particularly horses), her finished artworks are remarkable. They are also undeniably, unequivocally surrealist, yet often move away from typically male surrealism, instead focusing more on female sexuality. While Carrington was in fact one of the leading proponents of the Surrealism movement in Mexico, and the last surviving member of this 1930s band of artists, this outstanding artist was a lover of all media. She worked with textiles, created murals, wrote books and illustrated poetry, as well as designed stage costumes and lithographs. She was also a champion for women’s rights, and a founding member of the Mexico City feminist movement of the 1970s. This feminist spirit is beautifully conveyed in her majorly underrated novella The Hearing Trumpet. She was the subject of a historical novel written by the famed Mexican author Elena Poniatowska in 2011, simply titled Leonora.

Some of her work brutally portrays her experience of being institutionalised in Spain, whereas her ‘Mundo Mágico de los Mayas’ mural which resides in the Museo Nacional de Antropología, Mexico City is influenced by folk stories and her ‘Mujeres conciencia’ poster was created for the women’s lib movement. Her work has been exhibited in Ireland, the Pierre Matisse Gallery in New York and Pallant House Gallery in the UK.