Rebel, Rebel

Leonora Carrington was always a rebel. The potted biography at the start of Leonora Carrington: Rebel Visionary at Newlands House Gallery in Petworth tells how she was "asked to leave" not just one but two convent boarding schools and then ran off at the age of 20 with the much older Surrealist painter Max Ernst. 

She was still rebelling in her 90s, but as so often happens, the rebels see themselves vindicated, even if only posthumously. A Carrington painting made in 1945, Les Distractions de Dagobert, sold for $28.5 million earlier this year, the highest amount ever paid for a work by a female British artist.

Now, to be honest, we've never been huge fans of the paintings of Carrington, probably Britain's leading Surrealist, finding them a bit ethereal and wispy. But this show in West Sussex has a strong focus on her late work, particularly sculpture, and these creations, merging influences from myriad religions, mythologies and cultures, prove to have real heft. We were quite captivated. 

You walk around these cast creatures, noting a human feature here, a bit of animal there, a headdress, usually in a deep but by no means oppressive black. The mixtures of forms, shapes such as bird-like beaks or heads surrounded by rays of sunshine on human bodies are a distinct match for the colourful magical paintings. Make sure you go all the way round each item so as not to miss quirky details, such as the tail with kinks and curves that rises up the back of one form.

But what's going on in these sculptures? What are they intended to say? Well, perhaps it's best not to think too deeply about it, not to inquire into what it all means. 

"You want to turn things into an intellectual game. It's not," Leonora tells her cousin, Joanna Moorhead, who's curated this exhibition, in a video recorded in the artist's house in Mexico City two years before she died in 2011, and which you can enjoy before the end of the show. Moorhead determinedly seeks to prise out the motives and source of Carrington's gift, but the chain-smoking Leonora will have none of it and rebelliously rejects all the propositions put to her. "Doing it is the point. Not talking about it."

So let's talk a bit more about Leonora being a rebel, getting her parents in a whirl. "This girl will collaborate in neither work nor play," the nuns at one establishment told them. Here's a taste of a story she wrote in the 1940s, The Stone Door: "They all hate me because I'm a girl. Little girls can't do the same things as little boys, they say. It isn't true."

If Leonora had complied with the wishes of her father Harold, a wealthy textile manufacturer in Lancashire, she would have applied herself at finishing school and acquired the skills to become the wife of some rich man who could keep her in the style she and her three brothers had been accustomed to. However, her coming-out season in 1936 failed to produce the required result. Carrington later wrote a surreal story, The Debutante, about sending a hyena to a ball in her place. 

Anyway, she went off to Cornwall with Ernst -- 46 to her 20 -- and other members of an arty set and later returned to Lancashire to tell her father she was off abroad with Max. Harold told her she wasn't welcome in the house and never saw her again. (Max, by the way, obviously had the best chat-up lines in early 20th-century art: Leonora was succeeded in his affections by Peggy Guggenheim and Dorothea Tanning.)

Now, while the bulk of this show -- including photographs, prints and the excellent story-telling wall captions -- follows a chronological sequence, her later sculptures are dispersed throughout the gallery, a surprisingly large and welcoming exhibition space. 

Carrington's Surrealism is not that of Dalí or Magritte, but there's a certain sense of Bosch in her fantastical creations. And throughout the show, you can catch glimpses of different influences, from the Irish legends and fairy tales told her by her grandmother, her mother and her nanny to the Aztec and Mayan traditions of Mexico, where she spent so much of her later life. 

How did she end up in Mexico? After a sojourn in the south of France, Ernst was imprisoned for a second time in 1940. Leonora fled to Spain, where she endured a spell in a psychiatric hospital before meeting a Mexican poet, whom she married, and crossing the Atlantic. 

Luckily, her mother helped her pursue her artistic career, supporting her by sending her money. And Mexico City was a cheap place to live, attracting a thriving community of artists. "I didn’t have time to be anyone’s muse," Carrington said. "I was too busy rebelling against my family and learning to be an artist."

The record price for that Carrington painting reflects an increasing interest in her work over the last few years; there have been exhibitions in Madrid and Copenhagen, in Dublin and at Tate Liverpool. Most of the work on show in Petworth, though, has never been seen before in the UK. Also in this absorbing display are tapestries, jewellery, lithographs, stage designs and theatre costumes.

And to end -- a wall of masks. 

Strange creations too, some of them, hints of green men, hints of tusked animals, hints of the classical world, hints of tribal rituals. It's a world of mystery and imagination....

Practicalities

Leonora Carrington: Rebel Visionary is on at Newlands House Gallery in Petworth, West Sussex until October 26. It's open from 1000 to 1700 Wednesdays to Saturdays and from 1100 to 1600 on Sundays. Standard admission is £14.50. Allow yourself a good hour to see the show. The gallery is on Pound Street, just south of the centre of Petworth, backing on to the main car park in this small town. 

The easiest way to get to Petworth by public transport is by train to Pulborough (every half-hour from London Victoria, taking about 75 minutes) and then by hourly bus to Petworth (on route 1 from Worthing to Midhurst), which takes about 15 minutes. The bus stops in Petworth in the Market Square, two minutes walk from the gallery. 

In and around Petworth....

The town is best known for Petworth House and Park, home to one of the National Trust's greatest art collections, featuring Van Dyck, Gainsborough, Turner and the sublime carving of Grinling Gibbons. The deer park is a fine place for a walk.

Alternatively, there are a couple of interesting exhibitions to see not too far away, to complete an art-filled day or couple of days. At the Pallant House Gallery in Chichester, you can take in the excellent The Shape of Things: Still Life in Britain, while if you're on the trail of Max Ernst's lovers, head for Petersfield Museum, where you can learn about Peggy Guggenheim's five years in the area and the start of her passion for art collection in Peggy Guggenheim: Petersfield to Palazzo.  

Petworth and Chichester are connected by bus five times a day, but the trip from Petworth to Petersfield is possibly a little ambitious by public transport; Chichester would be the best base to take in all these venues if you're reliant on buses and trains.  

Images

Leonora Carrington (1917-2011), Daughter of the Minotaur, 2010. Image © Newlands House 

Leonora Carrington, Woman with Fox, 2010

Leonora Carrington, Dragoness, 2010 

Leonora Carrington, Bird, 2011 

Leonora Carrington, Untitled Mask, no date
Images 2-5 courtesy of the Leonora Carrington Council and rossogranada