Essay by Lauren A Kaplan
On April 6, 1917, an imaginative Leonora Carrington was born in Lancashire, England. The daughter of a wealthy textile manufacturer, Carrington grew up on a large estate full of wild flora and fauna, under the care of an Irish nanny named Mary Kavanaugh. It was in this setting that Leonora came to truly love nature and Irish folklore, both of which influenced her work later on. Under the auspices of her Catholic parents, Carrington was sent to one convent school after another in an attempt to instill in her a sense of religious discipline. However, she was routinely expelled from each school due to her "eccentricity, usually a combination of antisocial tendencies and certain supernatural proclivities." She took no interest in religious studies and therefore refused to let her rebellious spirit be tamed by these rigid environments. After numerous attempts to convince her parents to send her to art school, Leonora finally succeeded.
When she was eighteen, Leonora was sent to the Chelsea School of Art in London. After a few months at the Chelsea School, Carrington moved to the recently opened Ozenfant Academy for Art in London. Ozenfant ran his school like a drill sergeant, and was able to instill in Carrington the discipline that she needed to harness her creative energy. In 1936, there were two major Surrealist exhibitions in London: The First International Surrealist Exhibition in June, and a solo exhibition of the work of Max Ernst. Carrington learned about Surrealism and became particularly interested in Ernst's work. When she met Ernst at a dinner party, it was love at first sight. Of their love, art historian Susan Aberth says "it was a profoundly transformational experience for Carrington, who, literally overnight, was freed from a lifetime of familial restrictions and was propelled into an artistic community and lifestyle that promised the sorts of freedoms and creative expressions she had always longed for." At age twenty, Carrington moved to Paris where she joined Andre Breton's Surrealist ring and moved in with Ernst.
Even though Carrington never felt dependent upon Ernst, when in 1939, he was interned in a Nazi prison camp, she had a mental breakdown and eventually wound up in an asylum in Santander, Spain. This mental breakdown, and the harsh treatment that ensued, fueled much of Carrington's work from 1940-1944, including her memoir entitled "Down Below." After being released from the asylum, Carrington moved to New York to escape the perils of war. In 1943 she moved down to Mexico City, where she met the two people who proved most influential in her later life: her confidante and "cohort in experiencing the occult," artist Remedios Varo, and the Hungarian Jewish photographer Emerico "Chiki" Weisz. She married Weisz shortly after arriving in Mexico, and they had two sons within a few years of getting married. Motherhood briefly stunted (but never completely stopped) Carrington's artistic production, yet it was reignited by her companionship with Varo.
In Varo, Carrington encountered "an intensity of imaginative power that she found in no one else." Together, they experimented with alchemy, the Kabala, and the teachings of the Popol Vuh. Joined in and confined by the domestic sphere, the two artists painted images of women doing domestic tasks and discovering magic along the way. Like many other female Surrealists, her paintings often portray female protagonists, and combine elements of myth, story-telling, and Christian iconography with nature. Still haunted by her childhood fascination with nature and animals, many of Carrington's paintings contain creatures that are half animal, half human, and depict vast fields with houses in the background, similar to the large estate where she was raised. Yet when asked to explain her work, Carrington claims that she cannot; a vision merely comes to her from one of her various sources and she paints it. Her work is as enigmatic to her as it is to her audience.
By 1960, Carrington was well-known in Europe and Mexico, and a retrospective of her work, containing fifty-five pieces, was held at the Museo Nacional de Arte Moderno in Mexico City. By that time, she was not only painting, but had created tapestries, and sculptures as well. She frequently traveled to the United States throughout the 1970s and 1980s, where she met with many gallery owners in New York and Chicago and was gaining quite a following in the American art scene. In 1972, she began working on posters for feminist groups in Mexico and the United States. Today, on the cusp of her ninth decade, Carrington still lives in Mexico City with Emerico Weisz, and she is one of the last surviving Surrealists.
Lauren A Kaplan is a PhD student at the CUNY Graduate Center specializing in modern art and architecture with a focus on cross-cultural exchange between Europe and Latin America. She is an adjunct lecturer at Parsons, The New School for Design and an educator at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and the Morgan Library and Museum.
On April 6, 1917, an imaginative Leonora Carrington was born in Lancashire, England. The daughter of a wealthy textile manufacturer, Carrington grew up on a large estate full of wild flora and fauna, under the care of an Irish nanny named Mary Kavanaugh. It was in this setting that Leonora came to truly love nature and Irish folklore, both of which influenced her work later on. Under the auspices of her Catholic parents, Carrington was sent to one convent school after another in an attempt to instill in her a sense of religious discipline. However, she was routinely expelled from each school due to her "eccentricity, usually a combination of antisocial tendencies and certain supernatural proclivities." She took no interest in religious studies and therefore refused to let her rebellious spirit be tamed by these rigid environments. After numerous attempts to convince her parents to send her to art school, Leonora finally succeeded.
When she was eighteen, Leonora was sent to the Chelsea School of Art in London. After a few months at the Chelsea School, Carrington moved to the recently opened Ozenfant Academy for Art in London. Ozenfant ran his school like a drill sergeant, and was able to instill in Carrington the discipline that she needed to harness her creative energy. In 1936, there were two major Surrealist exhibitions in London: The First International Surrealist Exhibition in June, and a solo exhibition of the work of Max Ernst. Carrington learned about Surrealism and became particularly interested in Ernst's work. When she met Ernst at a dinner party, it was love at first sight. Of their love, art historian Susan Aberth says "it was a profoundly transformational experience for Carrington, who, literally overnight, was freed from a lifetime of familial restrictions and was propelled into an artistic community and lifestyle that promised the sorts of freedoms and creative expressions she had always longed for." At age twenty, Carrington moved to Paris where she joined Andre Breton's Surrealist ring and moved in with Ernst.
"I'm as mysterious to myself as I am mysterious to others."
Leonora Carrington
Even though Carrington never felt dependent upon Ernst, when in 1939, he was interned in a Nazi prison camp, she had a mental breakdown and eventually wound up in an asylum in Santander, Spain. This mental breakdown, and the harsh treatment that ensued, fueled much of Carrington's work from 1940-1944, including her memoir entitled "Down Below." After being released from the asylum, Carrington moved to New York to escape the perils of war. In 1943 she moved down to Mexico City, where she met the two people who proved most influential in her later life: her confidante and "cohort in experiencing the occult," artist Remedios Varo, and the Hungarian Jewish photographer Emerico "Chiki" Weisz. She married Weisz shortly after arriving in Mexico, and they had two sons within a few years of getting married. Motherhood briefly stunted (but never completely stopped) Carrington's artistic production, yet it was reignited by her companionship with Varo.
In Varo, Carrington encountered "an intensity of imaginative power that she found in no one else." Together, they experimented with alchemy, the Kabala, and the teachings of the Popol Vuh. Joined in and confined by the domestic sphere, the two artists painted images of women doing domestic tasks and discovering magic along the way. Like many other female Surrealists, her paintings often portray female protagonists, and combine elements of myth, story-telling, and Christian iconography with nature. Still haunted by her childhood fascination with nature and animals, many of Carrington's paintings contain creatures that are half animal, half human, and depict vast fields with houses in the background, similar to the large estate where she was raised. Yet when asked to explain her work, Carrington claims that she cannot; a vision merely comes to her from one of her various sources and she paints it. Her work is as enigmatic to her as it is to her audience.
By 1960, Carrington was well-known in Europe and Mexico, and a retrospective of her work, containing fifty-five pieces, was held at the Museo Nacional de Arte Moderno in Mexico City. By that time, she was not only painting, but had created tapestries, and sculptures as well. She frequently traveled to the United States throughout the 1970s and 1980s, where she met with many gallery owners in New York and Chicago and was gaining quite a following in the American art scene. In 1972, she began working on posters for feminist groups in Mexico and the United States. Today, on the cusp of her ninth decade, Carrington still lives in Mexico City with Emerico Weisz, and she is one of the last surviving Surrealists.
Lauren A Kaplan is a PhD student at the CUNY Graduate Center specializing in modern art and architecture with a focus on cross-cultural exchange between Europe and Latin America. She is an adjunct lecturer at Parsons, The New School for Design and an educator at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and the Morgan Library and Museum.
