The late surrealist painter and writer was known for her dreamlike paintings but a new exhibition brings her versatility between mediums to light
Fantasy bleeds onto the mundane contours of domestic life in the work of the late surrealist painter and writer Leonora Carrington. Mostly assembled from personal collections, like Norah Horna’s – daughter of Carrington’s friend and collaborator José Horna – Mythopoesis presents a somewhat odd assembly of 15 works, most made in Mexico, where she moved in 1942 after a short-lived marriage of convenience to an overseas correspondent allowed her to leave war-torn Europe. Here, what stands out most are not the dreamlike paintings for which she is best known but a suite of what might be seen as domestic objects: textiles, toys, games. The ease with which the artist moved between mediums – and, consequently, between the realms of ‘high art’ and traditional craft – is on view in Untitled (c. 1948–55), an intimately scaled blue wool tapestry depicting the Mesoamerican god Quetzalcoatl, which hangs between an oil painting and the prototype for a game board.
The highlight of Mythopoesis is La cuna (The Cradle) (c. 1945), a large painted sailboat that sits, balanced on two cylindrical logs, beside more recognisable works by Carrington, such as the paintings Sidhe, the White People of Thuatha de Danaan (1954), which depicts haunted, milky spirits gathered for a meal, and Equinoxio (1958), which contains a ghostly brown horse. La cuna was a collaborative effort: its body was carved by Horna in Mexico City, to mark the birth of Norah, and subsequently painted by Carrington. On the sides of the boat, one sees images of cloaked giraffes, a golden-coloured fish walking upright, a vulture cradling a harp, a tortoise and billy goats all parading beneath an undulating horizon illustrated with the sun and phases of the moon.
Another – much smaller, untitled – object that Carrington created as a gift for Norah sits on a plinth in the gallery. Made in 1946, this papier-mâché and metal carriage has an imposing black bird preening from its prow, a delicately painted procession of half-horse-half-human figures adorning its sides. Carrington’s paintings often borrow sentiments from children’s stories, reflecting their ability to insist on invented realities. Rueda de los caballos (c. 1954), a circular game board with seven horses and a donkey galloping clockwise, is a prototype of a game that Carrington, Horna and their friend, the artist Remedios Varo, had planned to produce through their (ultimately unlucrative) toy company Juguetes Norah, or Norah’s Games.
Though acclaimed, Carrington worked from a home studio in Mexico City – described by a visitor as a ‘combined nursery, kitchen, bedroom, kennel and junk store’ – often making works, such as the toys, with practical use. Is something surreal because it’s difficult to qualify? Because it exists outside of category? Here we see, among Carrington’s different creations, the blend of life into art into motherhood – each without its distinct category, nebulous and beautiful. Today, at a time when ever-discrete categories are often imposed on artists by market forces, limiting their careers and compressing their output to distinct, recognisable styles, it’s refreshing to see works made for children exhibited with those made for galleries, alongside the easy experimentation of casual collaborations, all bound by Carrington’s roving personal mythology.
Mythopoesis at Gallery Wendi Norris, San Francisco, through 15 March
From the March 2025 issue of ArtReview – get your copy.
