Leonora Carrington: Rebel Visionary – an exhibition of 'unearthly delights'
The 'captivating' show features over 70 pieces spanning everything from paintings to tapestries
The surrealist Leonora Carrington led a "fascinating life", said Artlyst magazine. Born to an upper-class family in Lancashire, she escaped a world of debutante balls and conventional expectations to become an artist in Paris. There, Carrington (1917-2011) had a "passionate affair" with the great German surrealist Max Ernst and mixed with the likes of Picasso, Dalí, Miró and Duchamp.
When war came, she made "a dramatic escape" to Mexico, where she spent the rest of her life producing "a diverse body of work" in many mediums, which combined European surrealism with the folkloric traditions of her adopted homeland. Carrington was long "under-appreciated", her art "overshadowed" by her "tumultuous" biography; but in recent years this has begun to change.
This May, her 1945 painting "Les Distractions de Dagobert" fetched £22.5m at Sotheby's, becoming the single most expensive work by a British woman ever sold at auction. Now a new show at Newlands House in Petworth, in West Sussex, "offers a comprehensive look at Carrington's imaginative and diverse career". Showcasing more than 70 pieces, including paintings, sculptures, tapestries and jewellery, it is a "must-see exhibition" that honours Carrington's "extraordinary talent and creativity".
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
The exhibition is "an ecstatic reminder of all that is liberating in surrealist art", said Jonathan Jones in The Guardian. The movement was considered "old-hat" by the late 1940s, but Carrington, who cared nothing for consensus, continued "making dream art many decades after dreams like hers went out of fashion".
Carrington's imagination "throws out creatures and ghosts and demons". One sculpture, entitled "The Old Magdalena" (1988), sees a woman entirely covered with hair standing as "a sentinel of strangeness". Elsewhere, there are murals created with Mayan textile workers, and masks inspired by Aztec and Mayan culture. "With bad surrealism, you feel it's fake or forced." Carrington's never feels like that; it is authentically weird to its core. For instance, "Daughter of the Minotaur" (2010), a "captivating" bronze, depicts its subject as a "horned beast" with a slender, gender-fluid body. It is "entrancing in its sheer oddity and, above all, conviction. It is real."
I had reservations about this show before visiting, said Laura Freeman in The Times. Surrealism is not really my thing: "I am dead set against other people's dreams", mystical experiences and "associated woo-woo". Yet while there is "imaginative excess" here – "dragons and firebirds, silent sphinxes and taloned beasts, a cow that is half-cactus" – Carrington executes them with impressive "elegance" and "economy of line", convincing with her "sheer force of personality" and "singular, spectral artistic vision".
Her versatility, meanwhile, is extremely impressive: beyond the paintings and sculptures, we see examples of her "painted furniture", "elaborately furred costume designs" and even papier- mâché heads created for a production of "The Tempest". This is an exhibition of "unearthly delights". I left it "captivated".
Newlands House Gallery, Petworth. Until 26 October
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
Battleground states to watch in the 2024 election
In Depth These seven states could end up deciding who wins the White House this year
By Justin Klawans, The Week US Published
-
Leave the crowds behind at these 7 sensational hotels
The Week Recommends Traveling in September means more room to explore
By Catherine Garcia, The Week US Published
-
The history and impact of HBCUs
In depth Schools have long been desegregated, but historically Black colleges and universities are still filling a need in the United States
By Theara Coleman, The Week US Published
-
Leave the crowds behind at these 7 sensational hotels
The Week Recommends Traveling in September means more room to explore
By Catherine Garcia, The Week US Published
-
Colin from Accounts, season two: an 'absolute joy to watch'
The Week Recommends The second series of Harriet Dyer and Patrick Brammall's hit TV comedy is 'every bit as good as the first'
By Irenie Forshaw, The Week UK Published
-
Peter Godfrey-Smith's 6 favorite books for expanding your mind
Feature The philosopher recommends works by Annie Proulx, Douglas Hofstadter, and more
By The Week US Published
-
6 groovy homes built in the 1970s
Feature Featuring a skylit conversation pit in Texas and a sunken living room in California
By The Week Staff Published
-
One great cookbook: 'Truly Mexican'
The Week Recommends A cookbook that will teach you the bones of one of the world's great cuisines
By Scott Hocker, The Week US Published
-
Bad Ischl: discover the sleepy salt-mining town's cultural side
The Week Recommends Explore this Austrian town, the first rural Alpine destination to be crowned a European Capital of Culture
By Irenie Forshaw, The Week UK Published
-
Stout revival: a new chapter for the dark beer
The Week Recommends The dark beer has shaken off its 'rugby lad' image and is appealing to a wider demographic
By Irenie Forshaw, The Week UK Published
-
The wild beauty of southeast Sri Lanka
The Week Recommends Dive deep into the island nation's most beautiful and untamed places
By The Week UK Published