La joven Leonora Carrington y el movimiento surrealista

Abstract

This paper raises the interest in the early works of the surrealist artist, still relatively unknown in Spain, Leonora Carrington (1917-2011), an English woman who settled in Mexico after the Second World War. She is a perfect example of a multitalented creator (painter, sculptor, illustrator, designer and writer) as well as non-conformist and unyielding feminist. In the 1930’s, thanks to her relationship with Max Ernst, she met the French Surrealists. For about three years she showed an intense creative activity together with her mentor both in painting and the writing of short stories, inspired by her own life. This stage ends traumatically with the arrest of her partner at the beginning of the war. Our purpose is to analyze how her rebellion against a wealthy English family develops into her early work, as well as against the role of femme-enfant assigned by the Surrealists, in search of autonomy culminating in later stages.