online art gallery

Leonora Carrington

"I didn't have time to be anyone's muse... I was too busy rebelling against my family and learning to be an artist." - Leonora Carrington, 1983

Leonora Carrington (born April 6, 1917) is a British-born artist, a surrealist painter and a novelist who now lives in Mexico.

Carrington was born in Clayton Green, South Lancaster, Lancashire, England. Her father was a wealthy industrialist, her mother was Irish. 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 Crooksey Hall.

Educated by governesses, tutors and nuns, she 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. She was already familiar with surrealism from Herbert Read's book.

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.

Carrington saw Max Ernst's work in the 1936 International Surrealist Exhibition in London where she was immediately attracted to the Surrealist artist before actually meeting him.

She met Max Ernst at a party in London in 1937. 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.[4] 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 GABA stimulator 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

After having escaped in Lisbon, Carrington arranged passage out of Europe with a Mexican diplomat (Renato Leduc), who was a friend of Picasso. In fact, she married Renato Leduc as part of the travel arrangements, since he accepted to do it just to help her. Events from that period would inform her work perhaps forever. She lives and works in Mexico after spending part of the 1960's in New York City.

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 a doctor.

Career

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 had published several books.[7] The first major exhibition of her work in the UK for twenty years will take place at Pallant House Gallery in Chichester, 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 will be exhibited alongside pieces by her close friends the Spanish painter Remedios Varo (1908-1963) and the Hungarian photographer Kati Horna (1912-2000).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonora_Carrington