Leonora Carrington

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Women Artists and the Surrealist Movement

Biography: The Mystic Rebel of Surrealism

"Leonora Carrington was one of the last remaining original Surrealists. With her passing our link to the magical, mystical female Surrealists such as Kahlo and Fini, Oppenheim and Miller, is gone. But the alchemy she created will always be with us in the work, in every brush stroke on the canvas."

— Paul Page

Leonora Carrington (1917-2011) was born in Lancashire, northern England, into a strict Catholic family. The only daughter among four children, she would grow to become one of the most important female artists of the 20th century, her work steeped in Celtic mythology, occult symbolism, and alchemical mysticism.

The Meeting with Max Ernst

Carrington came into contact with Surrealism through her lover, the Surrealist painter Max Ernst (1891Find Leonora Carrington Vintage Prints on eBay →

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War, Madness, and Escape

When war was declared between France and Germany, Max Ernst was imprisoned in a concentration camp as a German citizen held by the French. He was released then taken back into custody. Carrington was allowed to see him once, but only for two minutes. As the Germans advanced, Carrington escaped south through Perpignan to Andorra, then to Spain.

During this traumatic period, she suffered several mental breakdowns. On one occasion she was institutionalized (by the intervention of her family in England) and given cardiazol, a powerful shock-inducing drug administered to many female patients diagnosed with "hysteria". This harrowing experience would later inform her mystical writings about transformation and the feminine psyche.

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Mexico: The Mystical Years

After escaping the hospital in Santander, Carrington went to the Mexican Embassy and married Renato Leduc, a Mexican diplomat and friend of Picasso's. They embarked by ship to the United States, and she would remain in Mexico from 1942 until 1985.

In Mexico, she met the Hungarian immigrant Chiqui Weisz, a photographer, and married him in 1946. Their son, the artist Pablo Weisz Carrington, was born in 1947 and later illustrated her most famous book, The Hearing Trumpet.

During this long period, Carrington, like her great friend Remedios Varo (1913-1963), became an integral part of the Mexican art scene. Both women shared a passionate interest in the occult, alchemy, Gnostic doctrines, techniques of divination, and ancient Celtic mythology. She was greatly impressed by Robert Graves's book The White Goddess when it was first published in 1949, and its influence permeates her mystical paintings.

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Legacy of the Alchemist

Her great patron was Edward James, who arranged her first show at Pierre Matisse's gallery in New York in 1947. As well as painting, Carrington was a prolific writer and storyteller. Her most famous work, The Hearing Trumpet, was written in the 1950s and remains a masterpiece of surrealist feminist literature.

Leonora Carrington died in Mexico City on May 26, 2011, at age 94. Her work will be remembered as some of the most important in female art of the 20th century, her reputation assured alongside icons like Frida Kahlo and Leonor Fini. The mystical, magical world she created through her art continues to inspire and enchant audiences worldwide.

Gallery: Mystical Visions

Explore the enchanted, occult world of Leonora Carrington's paintings—where Celtic mythology meets alchemical symbolism, and the feminine divine reigns supreme.