Leonora Carrington, 94, painted eerie rituals with cloaked figures in forests, dancing deer with trees growing from their backs, and breathing buildings that shot planets and stars.
Carrington, a leading figure of the surrealist movement and perhaps the last great living Mexican artist, died Wednesday in Mexico City, the government said.
Carrington painted, drew, made sculptures, and wrote fiction and plays over a career that spanned much of the 20th century and featured affairs and friendships with some of the greatest artists of her time. Surrealist painter Max Ernst was an early lover in Paris. Remedios Varo was a close friend.
Carrington’s style became recognizable worldwide, a combination of anthropomorphic whimsy and an undercurrent of shadowy darkness. Yet she often rejected the label “Surrealist,” insisting instead that she painted what she observed in the magical space between the corporeal world and the subconscious.
Later in life, Carrington enjoyed accolades that in Mexico are reserved for the country’s most admired artists. In 2005, she was awarded the National Prize of Sciences and Arts. In 2008, an outdoor exhibit of her large-scale sculptures along the stately central boulevard Paseo de la Reforma became hugely popular. Los Angeles Times
