Galleries - July 2024

For many years, Carrington’s eventful life story has been central to discussions of her work - in particular her love affair with Max Ernst, her friendships with fellow Surrealists Picasso, Dalí, Miró and Duchamp, her decision as a young woman to abandon both her family and England, a perilous journey to Spain in the midst of the Second World War and incarceration in a Spanish asylum before a voyage to New York. She eventually moved to Mexico City where she found a new husband, brought up two sons, painted, drew, sculpted, wrote and made tapestries, stage sets and masks and largely stayed for the rest of her life. The show is timely as it also marks the 50 th anniversary of the publication of The Hearing Trumpet , her 1974 surrealist novel. Loans travelling to Petworth include many pieces from Mexico that have never been seen in the UK, include a wall of masks; a series of masks made for a theatrical production of The Tempest in Mexico in the 1950s; original lithographs; tapestries; sketches; sculptures; jewellery and paintings. The exhibition will examine Carrington’s legacy as a rebel – she railed against almost everyone and everything she could throughout her life, from her birth family to the social mores of her birthplace to Surrealism itself. It will also explore the many visionary elements of her work, especially her feminism, her ecological awareness, her interest in spirituality outside of organized religion, and her understanding of a world without boundaries. Carrington visited Sussex with her long-time friend and patron Edward James (1907-1984), who took her to his home at West Dean near Chichester. James, who championed her work for decades, said: “She…never relinquished her love of experimentation; the results being that she [was] able to diversify and explore a hundred or more techniques for the expression of her creative powers.” As the feminist art collective The Guerrilla Girls wryly commented, being a woman artist comes with the advantage of seeing your career pick up in your 80’s. That was certainly Leonora’s experience: today, 13 years after her death, her work is at last – and rightly - being widely celebrated. Leonora Carrington: Rebel Visionary will focus on the breadth, the variety and the extraordinary imagination behind a career that spanned eight decades and is curated by Joanna Moorhead, Carrington’s cousin and friend. Moorhead is the author of two books on Carrington ( The Surreal Life of Leonora Carrington, 2017; and Surreal Spaces: The Life and Art of Leonora Carrington , 2023). Joanna says: “ Leonora’s work, long neglected in the UK and across the art world, is at last being properly recognized. It’s sad she didn’t live to see this moment; but it’s wonderful for us to have her art still here, because more than a century on from her birth she has so much to say that’s relevant in today’s world. The themes that were important to her, as long ago as the 1940s, are the themes that are important to all of us today - especially the natural world, our place in it, and the interconnectedness of everyone and everything.”