LEONORA CARRINGTON

Clayton Green, England, 1917 — Mexico City, 2011

Leonora Carrington stands as one of the most visionary figures of twentieth-century art — a painter whose practice not only intersected with Surrealism but fundamentally redefined its imaginative and intellectual horizons. Born into the English upper class, she once declared, "I didn't have time to be anyone's muse. I was too busy rebelling against my family and learning to be an artist." That spirit of rebellion animated her lifelong exploration of autonomy, drawing deeply on Celtic mythology, alchemy, and feminist cosmology, which remained paramount to her symbolic language across seven decades.

Her entry into the Parisian Surrealist circle came through her encounter with Max Ernst in London in 1937. The two formed a creative partnership as consequential as it was romantic: their joint bronze sculpture La Femme Demi-tête (1937) — a monumental figure held in The 31 Women Collection— is among the earliest evidence of a creative dialogue in which each pushed the other toward new formal territory. Moving together to Saint-Martin-d'Ardèche in 1938, they transformed their shared house into a total work of art, with Ernst illustrating her book La Maison de la Peur (1938) and each painting the other's portrait. Yet Carrington resisted strict affiliation, forging an independent path that rejected both bourgeois convention and Surrealism's gendered frameworks. Work such as The Horses of Lord Candlestick (1938) reveal her enduring fascination with transformation, hybridity, and alternative realities.

The upheavals of World War II — Ernst's detainment and Carrington’s subsequent psychological crisis in Spain — catalyzed, rather than diminished, her practice, which Carrington later articulated in her memoir Down Below (1943). The Horses of Lord Candlestick was included in Guggenheim's Exhibition by 31 Women (1943), and she returned for the gallery's second all-women show, The Women (1945).  The Horses of Lord Candlestick was also presented in 31 Mujeres at Fundación MAPFRE, Madrid (2024–25) and 31 Mulheres at MAC/CCB, Lisbon (2025).

Carrington’s  relocation to Mexico proved decisive. There, alongside Remedios Varo, she developed a richly layered practice rooted in alchemy, mysticism, and ecological consciousness. Her 1945 masterwork Les Distractions de Dagobert is considered the most significant painting of her career. The 2022 Venice Biennale took its title from her children's book The Milk of Dreams; Leonora Carrington: Dream Weaver opened at the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis in early 2025; and her work features in Dreamworld: Surrealism at 100 at the Philadelphia Museum of Art (2025–26).

Work by Leonora Carrington is maintained as part of the 31 Women Collection to preserve the legacy of the first all-women's exhibition in the United States on record and to maintain Carrington's contributions in the record of art history.