Experience the new exhibition coming to Newlands House Gallery, from 12th July to 26th October 2024
The jewel in Petworth’s crown this summer is an exhibition at Newlands House Gallery of the work of the new British queen of the art world: the surrealist Leonora Carrington, once almost forgotten in her own country, now the highest selling female artist in UK history.
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Carrington, who was born in Lancashire in 1917 and lived most of her life in Mexico, had Sussex connections: her great friend and patron was Edward James of West Dean, patron also of Dali and Magritte. Carrington visited West Dean with James, and one of her paintings – The Dogchild of Monkton Priory – references another of James’s houses.
Earlier this year, a painting by Carrington – The Distractions of Dagobert (1945) – was sold at auction in New York for USD$28.5 million, the highest sum ever achieved by a female British artist, and one of the highest sums ever achieved by any female artist in history.
Carrington and James had met on the beach in Acapulco in 1946, after Carrington left England in 1937 to join her lover Max Ernst and his friends – including Picasso, Dali, Duchamp and Miro – in Paris. Carrington and Ernst later travelled south to live in a farmhouse in the south of France, before being separated by war – and after a series of extraordinary adventures, Carrington ended up living in Mexico City, where she was based for 70 years.
A prolific painter, writer, sculptor, designer of tapestries and theatre sets and costumes, as well as a playwright, Carrington’s work went under the radar of the international art world for many years: but over the last 20 years, and especially since her death in 2011, she has been the focus of exhibitions around the world. The show at Newlands House Gallery – Leonora Carrington: Rebel Visionary (running from 12th July to 26th October 2024) – brings to a British audience works that have never been seen in the UK before, particularly sculptures, masks and designs for theatre costumes.
The show, curated by Carrington’s cousin Joanna Moorhead, who knew her in Mexico during the last five years of her life, focuses on less well-known elements of her output, as well as on her final years – she was working to the end. It also includes photographs of both her house in Mexico City, which will soon open as a museum, and the house in the south of France where she lived with Ernst, which is festooned with the couple’s artworks – paintings, bas reliefs and sculptures carved into the very fabric of the house, its walls, doors and cupboards.
Intricate pieces of jewellery, as well as a wall of the masks Carrington made as personal talismans, are also on show. The exhibition also includes a never-seen-before interview filmed when Carrington was in her nineties, in which she reflects on her long life, and on what she had learned across more than 90 years, most of them spent creating art.
An extraordinary exhibition not to be missed, making for the perfect cultural day out in Petworth. Whilst you are here, make sure to visit the HG Café, based in the grounds of Newlands House Gallery, for a delicious sweet treat and hot drink after soaking up the featured works. Or, for those looking to linger a little longer, try a meal at either The Angel Inn, or E. Street Bar & Grill, where you can savour seasonal dishes made from fresh, local ingredients and enjoy a selection of wines and beers, many of which are produced in Sussex itself.
Written by: Joanna Moorhead