Mary Leonora Carrington (6 April 1917 – 25 May 2011) was a British-born surrealist painter and novelist. She lived most of her adult life in Mexico City and was one of the last surviving participants in the surrealist movement of the 1930s. Carrington was also a founding member of the women's liberation movement in Mexico during the 1970s.
Mary Leonora Carrington was born at Westwood House in Clayton Green, England, into a Roman Catholic family. Her father, Harold Wylde Carrington, was a wealthy textile manufacturer, and her mother, Marie (née Moorhead), was from Ireland. She had three brothers: Patrick, Gerald, and Arthur. From 1920 until 1927 she lived at Crookhey Hall, a Gothic Revival mansion in Cockerham, which exerted a great influence on her imagination.
Educated by governesses, tutors, and nuns, she was expelled from two schools, including New Hall School in Chelmsford for her rebellious behaviour, until her family sent her to Florence, where she attended Mrs Penrose's Academy of Art. She also, briefly, attended St Mary's convent school in Ascot. In 1927, at the age of ten, she saw her first Surrealist painting in a Left Bank gallery in Paris and later met many Surrealists, including Paul Éluard. Her father opposed her career as an artist, but her mother encouraged her. She returned to England and was presented at Court, but according to her, she brought a copy of Aldous Huxley's Eyeless in Gaza (1936) to read instead. In 1935, she attended the Chelsea School of Art in London for one year, and with the help of her father's friend Serge Chermayeff, she was able to transfer to the Ozenfant Academy of Fine Arts established by the French modernist Amédée Ozenfant in London (1936–38).
She became familiar with Surrealism from a copy of Herbert Read's book, Surrealism (1936), given to her by her mother, but she received little encouragement from her family to forge an artistic career. The Surrealist poet and patron Edward James was the champion of her work in Britain; James bought many of her paintings and arranged a show in 1947 for her work at the Pierre Matisse Gallery in New York. Some works are still hanging at James' former family home, currently West Dean College in West Dean, West Sussex.
And Then We Saw the Daughter of the Minotaur, 1953
Carrington stated that: "I painted for myself...I never believed anyone would exhibit or buy my work." She was not interested in the writings of Sigmund Freud, as were other Surrealists in the movement. She instead focused on magical realism and alchemy and used autobiographical detail and symbolism as the subjects of her paintings. Carrington was interested in presenting female sexuality as she experienced it, rather than as that of male surrealists' characterization of female sexuality. Carrington's work of the 1940s is focused on the underlying theme of women's role in the creative process.
Carrington's work is identified and compared with the surrealist movement. Within the surrealist movement, there was a strong exploration of the woman's body combined with the mysterious forces of nature. During this time women artists correlated the feminine figure with creative nature while using ironic stances.
Three years after being released from the asylum and with the encouragement of André Breton, Carrington wrote about her psychotic experience in her memoir Down Below. In this, she explained how she had a nervous breakdown, didn't want to eat, and left Spain. This is where she was imprisoned in an asylum. She illustrates all that was done to her: ruthless institutional therapies, sexual assault, hallucinatory drugs, and unsanitary conditions. It has been suggested that the events of the book should not be taken literally, given Carrington's state at the time of her institutionalization; however, recent authors have sought to examine the details of her institution in order to discredit this theory. She also created art to depict her experience, such as her Portrait of Dr. Morales and Map of Down Below.
Her book The Hearing Trumpet deals with aging and the female body. It follows the story of older women who, in the words of Madeleine Cottenet-Hage in her essay "The Body Subversive: Corporeal Imagery in Carrington, Prassinos and Mansour", seek to destroy the institutions of their imaginative society to usher in a "spirit of sisterhood." The Hearing Trumpet also criticizes the shaming of the nude female body, and it is believed to be one of the first books to tackle the notion of gender identity in the twentieth century. Carrington's views situated motherhood as a key experience to femininity. Carrington stated, "We, women, are animals conditioned by maternity.... For female animals love-making, which is followed by the great drama of the birth of a new animal, pushes us into the depths of the biological cave." While this may seem to differ from certain modern feminist perspectives, the cave, of which Carrington offers many versions, is the setting for a symbolic coming to life, not an actual birth-giving ("and this can mean aquatic or maternal, this can be double, in my opinion"; mère and mer, following Simone de Beauvoir).
Self-Portrait (Inn of the Dawn Horse), 1937-1938
Carrington stated that: "I painted for myself...I never believed anyone would exhibit or buy my work." She was not interested in the writings of Sigmund Freud, as were other Surrealists in the movement. She instead focused on magical realism and alchemy and used autobiographical detail and symbolism as the subjects of her paintings. Carrington was interested in presenting female sexuality as she experienced it, rather than as that of male surrealists' characterization of female sexuality. Carrington's work of the 1940s is focused on the underlying theme of women's role in the creative process.
Carrington's work is identified and compared with the surrealist movement. Within the surrealist movement, there was a strong exploration of the woman's body combined with the mysterious forces of nature. During this time women artists correlated the feminine figure with creative nature while using ironic stances.
Three years after being released from the asylum and with the encouragement of André Breton, Carrington wrote about her psychotic experience in her memoir Down Below. In this, she explained how she had a nervous breakdown, didn't want to eat, and left Spain. This is where she was imprisoned in an asylum. She illustrates all that was done to her: ruthless institutional therapies, sexual assault, hallucinatory drugs, and unsanitary conditions. It has been suggested that the events of the book should not be taken literally, given Carrington's state at the time of her institutionalization; however, recent authors have sought to examine the details of her institution in order to discredit this theory. She also created art to depict her experience, such as her Portrait of Dr. Morales and Map of Down Below.
Arts, 110, 1944
Carrington is credited with feminising surrealism. Her paintings and writing brought a woman's perspective to what had otherwise been a largely male-dominated artistic movement. Carrington demonstrated that women should be seen as artists in their own right and not to be used as muses by male artists.
In 2022, the 59th International Art Exhibition was titled The Milk of Dreams. This name is borrowed from a book by Carrington, in which, as Cecilia Alemani says she, "describes a magical world where life is constantly re-envisioned through the prism of the imagination, and where everyone can change, be transformed, become something and someone else."
Carrington's life inspired "Out of This World: The Surreal Art of Leonora Carrington", a children's nonfiction book written by Michelle Markell and illustrated by Amanda Hall and which tells the story of Carrington's life and art as she pursues her creative talents and breaks with 20-century conventions about the ways in which an upper-class women and debutants should behave.
Carrington and her son were the subject of the experimental short film Leonora and Gabriel: An Instant. The film was made by Lizet Benrey at Carrington's residence in Mexico City. Carrington discussed the art in her home and life as a surrealist. The film premiered in 2012 at the San Diego Latino Film Festival.
The Magical World of the Mayas, 1964