The Surreal Life of Leonora Carrington
by Joanna Moorhead
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In 2006 journalist Joanna Moorhead discovered that her father's cousin, Prim, who had disappeared many decades earlier, was now a famous artist in Mexico. Although rarely spoken of in her own family (regarded as a black sheep, a wild child; someone they were better off without) in the meantime Leonora Carrington had become a national treasure in Mexico, where she now lived, while her paintings are fetching ever-higher prices at auction today. Intrigued by her story, Joanna set off to Mexico show more City to find her lost relation. Later she was to return to Mexico ten times more between then and Leonora's death in 2011, sometimes staying for months at a time and subsequently travelling around Britain and through Europe in search of the loose ends of her tale. They spent days talking and reading together, drinking tea and tequila, going for walks and to parties and eating take away pizzas or dining out in her local restaurants as Leonora told Joanna the wild and amazing truth about a life that had taken her from the suffocating existence of a debutante in London via war-torn France with her lover, Max Ernst, to incarceration in an asylum and finally to the life of a recluse in Mexico City. Leonora was one of the last surviving participants in the Surrealist movement of the 1930s, a founding member of the Women's Liberation Movement in Mexico during the 1970s and a woman whose reputation will survive not only as a muse but as a novelist and a great artist. This book is the extraordinary story of Leonora Carrington's life, and of the friendship between two women, related by blood but previously unknown to one another, whose encounters were to change both their lives. show lessTags
Recommendations
Member Reviews
The chatty style makes it an easy read about a long and eventful life but it’s lacking deeper examination of Leonora Carrington’s career. I ended up ambivalent about her as a person – on the one hand cheering someone who let nothing hold her back from what she wanted to do, but on the other hand finding her lack of empathy and concern for others problematic. She came from a life of money and privilege and seemed happy to use others for her own ends with no regard for their feelings, taking money and aid from the family she affected to despise, selling off a house and leaving France when her lover was interned as an “enemy alien”, marrying a man who could get her into Mexico only to leave him to live with her artistic friends show more as soon as she was comfortably settled in the country (though in this story he’s not overly attached anyway), and a host of other things large and small.
On the whole I wanted a deeper understanding of her as an artist, her motivations and inspirations, but then, as it says towards the end of the book she believed it was up to the viewer to interpret her work and refused to comment on it herself - in which case I’ll say I find it a little cartoonish and nowhere near as gripping and nightmarishly inventive as the sublime Dorothea Tanning. Sorry Leonora! show less
On the whole I wanted a deeper understanding of her as an artist, her motivations and inspirations, but then, as it says towards the end of the book she believed it was up to the viewer to interpret her work and refused to comment on it herself - in which case I’ll say I find it a little cartoonish and nowhere near as gripping and nightmarishly inventive as the sublime Dorothea Tanning. Sorry Leonora! show less
Pintora y escritora extraordinaria, pionera del surrealismo y figura crucial del arte del último siglo, Leonora Carrington tuvo una vida siempre a contracorriente, tan surrealista como su pintura. Nació en Inglaterra en una familia acomodada, de la que se fugó con apenas veinte años, y pasó temporadas en Francia, España y Portugal antes de embarcarse, junto con gran parte de su generación artística europea, rumbo a América, donde encontró una nueva vida.
Una vida que, como las de Max Ernst, Marcel Duchamp, Frida Kahlo o Peggy Guggenheim, recorre gran parte de los avatares políticos y artísticos del siglo XX.
Esta es su biografía más personal, escrita por su prima Joanna Moorhead, periodista inglesa que se enteró, ya de show more adulta, de que la famosa Leonora Carrington era familiar suya, y la acompañó durante sus últimos años. show less
Una vida que, como las de Max Ernst, Marcel Duchamp, Frida Kahlo o Peggy Guggenheim, recorre gran parte de los avatares políticos y artísticos del siglo XX.
Esta es su biografía más personal, escrita por su prima Joanna Moorhead, periodista inglesa que se enteró, ya de show more adulta, de que la famosa Leonora Carrington era familiar suya, y la acompañó durante sus últimos años. show less
Nov 16, 2017Spanish
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Author Information
7 Works 203 Members
Awards and Honors
Distinctions
The Guardian Book of the Day (2017-04-05)
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- The Surreal Life of Leonora Carrington
- Original publication date
- 2017-04-06
- People/Characters
- Leonora Carrington; Max Ernst; Pablo Picasso; Maurie Carrington; Harold Carrington; Pat Carrington (show all 35); Gerard Carrington; Arthur Carrington; Mary Cavanaugh (Nanny Carrington); Amédée Ozenfant; Serge Chermayeff; Ursula Goldfinger; Erno Goldfinger; Stella Snead; Joan Powell; Roland Penrose; Paul Éluard; Lee Miller; Mary Monica Moorhead; Maria Edgeworth; Man Ray; Leonor Fini; Catherine Yarrow; Frau Asegurado; Renato Leduc; Imre Emerico Weisz Schwartz; Remedios Varo; Kati Horna; Edward James; Peggy Guggenheim; Octavio Paz; Alan Glass; Gabriel Weisz Carrington; Pablo Weisz Carrington; Robert Capa
- Important places
- Clayton-le-Woods, Leyland, Lancashire, England, UK; Mexico City, Mexico; Buckingham Palace, London, England, UK; Ascot, Berkshire, England, UK; Hazelwood Hall, Morecambe, Lancashire, England, UK; Stoneyhurst College, Lancashire, England, UK (show all 19); Moate, County Westmeath, Ireland; Westwood House, Clayton-le-Woods, Leyland, Lancashire, England, UK; Crookhey Hall, Cockerham, Lancashire, England, UK; London, England, UK; Paris, France; Saint-Martin-d'Ardèche, Ardèche, France; Largentière Prison, Largentière, Ardèche, France; Les Milles, Aix-en-Provence, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, France; Madrid, Spain; Santander, Cantabria, Spain; Lisbon, Portugal; New York, New York, USA; Gramercy Park, New York, New York, USA
- Important events
- WWII; Mexico City demonstration, 1968
- Original language
- English
Classifications
Statistics
- Members
- 82
- Popularity
- 386,319
- Reviews
- 2
- Rating
- (3.88)
- Languages
- English, Spanish
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 7
- ASINs
- 2
