The Surreal World of Leonora Carrington

It was a sad day in Mexico City, this weekend, as people gathered at the Palacio de Bellas Artes to honor Leonora Carrington.

The great Surrealist artist and prolific author died of complications following pneumonia, at 94 years old, on May 25th, 2011. She had lived and worked in Mexico for most of her life.

Leonora was born in Britain, educated in Italy, then moved to France. She had fled to Spain during World War Two and been institutionalized as insane. She escaped with the help of a friend and spent time in Portugal, before making her way across the Atlantic into the Americas, with the help of a Mexican diplomat. Another Mexican, the poet Renato Leduc, married her, in order to get her out of Portugal and into the New World. Though they dissolved the union as soon as they were here.

She lived in New York, USA, for a while, before moving on to Mexico City, Mexico. Here her wanderings and flights came to a halt. She had found somewhere that she could call home.

She arrived in Mexico in 1942. It was here that she married her third husband, Emericko Weisz. Her two children were born in Mexico City. It was here that she settled and was able to produce her greatest portfolio of work. To those who knew her, it was in Mexico when she was finally happy.


'The Recital of Dreams'
But all of that is Leonora the woman. What most people look for is Leonora the artist. It is this that made her world famous. Christies sell her work for $1.5m; she's received a stream of awards and accolades, including a knighthood from her native Britain and the USA's National Prize for Arts. Salvador Dalí called her 'a most important woman artist', while Max Ernst left his wife to marry her.

The poet, Homero Aridjis, called her, "The last great living Surrealist... a living legend."

Her lifetime love of art had not seemed likely to result in world fame. For a start, she was a woman and, in the male-orientated art world, woman tended to be the models. Nevertheless, Leonora managed to persuade her family to let her study at the Academy of Art, in Florence, Italy, and the Chelsea School of Art, in London, England. It was through a fellow student there that Leonora met Max Ernst and entered the realm of Surrealism.


'Self-Portrait'
She was 19 and he was 46. They described themselves as soul mates and ran away to Paris to be together. Max divorced his wife and married Leonora, who embraced his art as much as the man himself.

She soon had exhibitions in both Paris and Amsterdam, while she applied herself to living the life of a Surrealist woman. In one notable incident, she cut off the hair of house-guests while they slept, then served it back to them, in an omelette, for breakfast.

The couple were living in Provence, France, when the Second World War erupted over Europe. As a German, Max Ernst was immediately arrested by the French, as a 'foreign alien'. He was soon released, but then France was occupied by the Germans and he was arrested again. This time it was for creating 'degenerate art' and he disappeared for several weeks.

Leonora fled to Spain, where she had a nervous breakdown in the Madrid offices of the British Embassy. She was taken to an asylum, in Santander, Spain, where her medication (later banned) caused spasms and hallucinations. In her biography, she explained that she was 'rescued by her nanny who arrived in a submarine'.


'Labyrinth'
In reality, her father had sent a business contact to bust her out and sneak her onto a boat into South Africa. She gave him the slip and jumped into a taxi. Then Leonora said the first thing which came to mind, "Take me to the Mexican Embassy!" Which is how she came to be helped by Mexican diplomats and briefly in a marriage of convenience with Renato Leduc.

Leonora sorted her head out in Mexico City. Here no-one was saying, 'but you're only a woman', because the like of Frida Kahlo and Remedios Varo had already forged those pathways. She was free to spend the rest of her life creating spectacular works of art.

The legacy of this can be seen all over the city, in free-standing public sculptures.


'Los Monjes (The Monks)', in Mexico City


'How Doth the Crocodile?' and 'No Hay Lugar (No Place Anymore)', in Mexico City
There are directions on finding all 15 pieces, in Mexico City, here. There is also a permanent collection of her art at the Museo Nacional de Arte Moderno (Museum of Modern Art), in Chapultepec Park.

She was a seeker and a searcher. In her work, she always sought to define moments when one plane of consciousness blends with another.
Whitney Chadwick, 'Women Artists and the Surrealist Movement' (1991)

Leonora's genius found its expression in tapestries, collages, written articles, stories, essays and poetry, as well as the painting and sculptures. She penned nine books, and was featured in many others.


'Temple of the World'
There have been thousands of articles, theses and books written about this marvel of the art world. Leonora Carrington had a stark message for those intent on intellectualizing her paintings, "You're wasting your time." Or, perhaps more eloquently put, in her book, 'The Hearing Trumpet', "Darling, don’t be philosophical, it doesn’t suit you, it makes your nose red."

Leonora Carrington was one of Mexico's greatest artists. She will be missed.

Museo Soumaya: Carlos Slim's Gift to Mexico and the Art World

The richest man in the world lives in Mexico. Today, he has opened up his childhood home, as a museum and art gallery, renamed in honor of his wife. The Soumaya Museum, in Mexico City, will exhibit some of the greatest artistic treasures in human history. Original works by Leonardo da Vinci, Picasso, Dali, Toulouse-Lautrec, Cezanne, Rivera, Tintoretto, Rubens, Siqueiros and Renoir will grace its hallowed halls; as well as items of historical importance, like a collection of gold coins from the 16th century Spanish vice-roys to Mexico.


Entrance to the Soumaya Museum, Mexico City
The man is Carlos Slim Helú, the 71 year old telecoms and investment tycoon. Last year, American business and financial magazine, Forbes, announced that Slim's personal wealth had overtaken that of Bill Gates. This year, the same publication noted that Slim's bank balance had now far outstripped Gates's. He is viewed as a man with a Midas touch. His companies alone are worth an estimated $74 billion. Then there are the shares. As well as a substantial number of them scattered throughout Mexican companies, he also owns a percentage of several American ones too. These include the New York Times and Saks.

Much of this wealth has been channelled into snapping up art treasures, as they came onto the market. Slim particularly likes Auguste Rodin. The largest private collection of Rodin pieces belongs to him. In terms of volume, it is beaten only by the public collection at the Musée Rodin, in France. Slim's collection includes one of the twelve original and authenticated versions of 'The Kiss'; and also 'Eve', which was famously sold at auction, by Christies, for a record $18,969,000, in May 2008. There is no doubt now as to who was on the other end of the telephone.


Carlos Slim with Rodin's 'The Three Shades'
The Rodin collection is just part of over 66,000 items of artistic, cultural and historical importance, which belong to Carlos Slim. Many of these are being exhibited for the first time, in his new Soumaya Museum. The homage to Rodin is even more clear in the architecture of the building. Fernando Romero, Slim's son-in-law, designed it to look like a Rodin sculpture.

Until now, Mexico City has had a lot of scattered exhibitions, but no major art gallery. The capital's major attraction for connoisseurs has been the number of Diego Rivera murals and paintings, on display in various locations around the city, as well as the Surrealist classics of his wife, Frida Kahlo. Some of these have made it into Slim's collection too. However, Slim's vision was for more. He explained, in yesterday's launch news conference, that the Soumaya Museum will allow 'Mexicans, who can't travel abroad, to physically get to know works by the greatest artists.'

Entrance, into the Soumaya Museum, is free. It covers 16,000 square meters and rises up over six storeys. The facilities are part of a massive urban development, costing US$800 million, which include conference halls, a five-star hotel and housing. As Slim put it, "It's a gift to the city and to the whole country of Mexico, to all the young kids too."


Red carpet outside the Soumaya Museum, Mexico City
Carlos Slim was born, in Mexico City, on January 28, 1940, as the son of Lebanese immigrants. Julián Slim Haddad, his father, was a keen businessman, who tutored all six of his children, from an early age, in the art of business. The young Carlos was a quick learner. He bought his first shares, in a Mexican bank, at the age of just twelve.

Slim trained as an engineer, with a degree at Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (National Autonomous University of Mexico). His passion remained in business though and he established several real estate, engineering and mining companies. His real boom occurred during the 1980s, when a decline in Mexican industry placed several companies on the market. Slim snapped them up for bargain prices, then invested heavily to reinstate them. His personal fortune grew. He is the mogul behind Mexico's monopolizing telecoms company, Telmex.


Carlos and Soumaya
Soumaya Domit Gemayel was the love of his life. He married her in 1966 and they remained deeply devoted to each other, until her death in 1999. The couple had six children. She was primarily concerned with philanthropic projects, including establishing a safe and legal way for organ donation to occur in Mexico. It is in her honor that Slim has named his landmark museum.

The Soumaya Museum's Spanish language website is here. The museum itself is located in Plaza Carso, in the Polanco district of Mexico City.