Oil on canvas
During World War II, after the imprisonment of her then partner Max Ernst, Carrington fled France and sought asylum in Spain. There, she experienced a series of psychological crises. Her family placed her in a sanatorium against her will, where she was subjected to severe treatments. Carrington eventually moved to New York, where André Breton encouraged her to write about her experiences in the Surrealist journal VVV. Shortly thereafter she made Green Tea, which is possibly a meditation on her confinement. At left there is a figure, often interpreted as the artist, clad in a restrictive cowhide-like straitjacket. A white horse, another one of Carrington’s autobiographical symbols, is chained to a tree nearby.
522: Art of This Century, 2025
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Leonora Carrington
British, 1917–2011 6 works onlineAnimal/human hybrids, giant goddesses, spaces for magical transformation, and enigmatic creatures populate Leonora Carrington’s artworks and writing. She created a pantheon of subjects that convey her interest in the sacred—one that is untethered to a specific religion or culture—and its presence in the intimate corners of our psyches.
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Surrealism
An artistic and literary movement led by French poet and writer André Breton from 1924 through World War II. Drawing on the psychoanalytic theories of Sigmund Freud, the Surrealists sought to overthrow what they perceived as the oppressive rationalism of modern society by accessing the sur réalisme (superior reality) of the subconscious.
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Art of This Century
Gallery 522In the 1940s the New York City art world expanded with the arrival of European émigrés escaping World War II.
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