Leonora Carrington Estate England, 1917-2011

Leonora Carrington (1917–2011, England) developed a universe where myth, alchemy and the unconscious converge. Working across painting, sculpture, and writing her practice unfolds through symbols drawn from Celtic lore, esoteric traditions, memory and psychoanalysis. Moving from the northern English countryside and ultimately to Mexico City, she created a language shaped by love, fiercely personal in tone, independent in spirit, and later profoundly influential, and it is in her book ‘Down Below’ where this feels most honest.

 

It was in Mexico, where Carrington rediscovered the freedom and imaginative possibility first felt alongside Max Ernst, that her work deepened into the visionary language for which she is now known. The country’s layered cosmologies and its everyday closeness to the magical mirrored her inner world, giving her the space to fully inhabit the imagination she had long carried. Her lunches at Casa Lamm with writers, artists, and friends became part of her rhythm - moments of exchange and quiet ritual that grounded her as much as her studio practice. Her return to Casa Lamm today carries this intimate history: a place where she nourished both her imagination and her community. She holds the heavens, the earth, and the underworld of Surrealism.

 

Carrington’s work has been celebrated in major exhibitions across Europe and the Americas, including landmark presentations at the Tate, the Serpentine, and the Museo de Arte Moderno in Mexico City, an institution central to her life and legacy. Her work forms part of significant public collections such as MoMA, the Tate Collection, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, and MAM.