Biography
Mary Leonora Carrington OBE was a British-born Mexican artist, surrealist painter, and novelist who spent most of her adult life in Mexico City. She was among the last surviving members of the surrealist movement from the 1930s and played a key role as a founding figure in Mexico's women's liberation movement during the 1970s.
In 1936, Carrington encountered the work of German surrealist Max Ernst at the International Surrealist Exhibition in London, feeling drawn to him prior to meeting. The following year, they met at a London party and quickly formed a connection, moving together to Paris where Ernst separated from his wife. With World War II's outbreak, Ernst was first arrested by French authorities as a "hostile alien" but released after interventions by friends including Paul Éluard and journalist Varian Fry. Later, the Gestapo arrested Ernst because the Nazis deemed his art "degenerate." He escaped, leaving Carrington behind, and fled to the United States with support from arts patron Peggy Guggenheim.
Following Ernst’s arrest, Carrington was deeply affected and traveled to Spain with her friend Catherine Yarrow. While staying with family acquaintances in Madrid, she suffered severe anxiety and delusions leading to a psychotic break and subsequent institutionalization. Treated with electroconvulsive therapy and medications including Cardiazol and Luminal, she was later released into a caretaker’s charge and informed her parents planned to send her to a sanatorium in South Africa. During a stopover in Portugal, she escaped and sought out Renato Leduc, a poet and Mexican Ambassador at the Mexican Embassy. Leduc, a friend of Pablo Picasso, agreed to a marriage of convenience that granted Carrington diplomatic immunity as a diplomat’s wife. They divorced in 1943. Meanwhile, Ernst married Peggy Guggenheim in New York in 1941; their marriage also ended a few years later. Ernst and Carrington never rekindled their relationship. After a year in New York, Carrington and Leduc moved to Mexico, a place she grew to love and where she lived intermittently for the rest of her life. This period significantly influenced her artistic work.
After spending part of the 1960s in New York City, Carrington returned to live and work in Mexico. In 1963 she was commissioned to create a mural titled El Mundo Mágico de los Mayas, inspired by regional folk tales. The mural is now housed in the Museo Nacional de Antropología in Mexico City.
In 1973, Carrington designed Mujeres conciencia, a poster for Mexico’s Women's Liberation movement, portraying a 'new Eve.' During the 1970s, women artists across generations responded to the more liberal climate and feminist movements by incorporating themes of women's liberation and consciousness into their art, while others chose to advocate through activism rather than artistic expression.
