Palazzo Reale, Milan, hosts the exhibition “Leonora Carrington”, the first Italian retrospective dedicated to the artist, featuring over sixty works documenting her life and career. Carrington, living around the world, combined diverse visions through an extraordinary body of work that establishes her as one of the most influential women of recent times. Her intellectual identity is explored through a series of paintings, drawings, photographs, videos and archival materials that explore the span of her creative career, seeking to restore her to the importance she deserves within the history of art, too often monopolized by male artists.
Leonora Carrington, “Orplied”, 1955, oil on canvas, 90 x 131 cm, Colección Banco Nacional De México © Estate of Leonora Carrington, by SIAE 2025, ph. courtesy Palazzo Reale Milano
Close to Surrealism and its dissonances, the influence of which is perceptible in much of her work, what sets her apart from any of her contemporaries is the revolutionary and nonconformist spirit we find in every character that populates the dreamlike space delineated by the frame. Her depiction of a vision poised between nightmare and dream, populated by strange characters, half-human, half-animal, with details bordering on the disturbing, is multifaceted. Leonora Carrington’s work is multifaceted, blending dream, reality, magic and politics. Myth and psychology alternate, giving shape to a multifaceted complexity that defies categorization. We are unable to provide a rational explanation for these representations, yet the discordant juxtaposition of elements, objects, animals, humans and details makes her work cathartic. Hers is a delirious, magnetic, introspective journey, capable of transporting us to a zero-time of art where everything is possible and where there need not necessarily be a rational explanation for what we see.
Leonora Carrington, “The Eléments”, 1946, oil on panel, 35.6 × 99.8 cm, Rudman Trust Collection © Estate of Leonora Carrington, by SIAE 2025, ph. courtesy Palazzo Reale Milano
«Non intellettualizzare le mie opere, sprecheresti il tuo tempo, ma vedile attraverso le tue emozioni», affermava l’artista. La versatilità celebrata in questa mostra trova un dialogo attuale con le tematiche contemporanee legate a riflessioni su arte e conoscenza. Tra i temi essenziali esplorati troviamo il profondo legame che la lega all’Italia, tappa decisiva nella sua formazione, e soprattutto il tratto essenziale della Firenze dei primi anni Trenta, destinato a rimanere per sempre nel suo immaginario. Il corpo femminile e la psiche umana, le creature fantastiche, i simboli alchemici e le figure mitologiche diventano strumenti atti a indagare la condizione umana aprendoci a nuove possibilità di lettura.
Leonora Carrington, “Grandmother Moorhead’s Aromatic Kitchen”, 1974, oil on canvas, 79 x 124 cm, The Charles B. Goddard Center for Visual and Performing Arts – Ardmore, Oklahoma © Estate of Leonora Carrington, by SIAE 2025, ph. courtesy Royal Palace Milan
The fairy-tale imagination of her stories, populated by talking animals, where the absurd and the mundane coexist without logic, becomes a symbol of rebellion and critique aimed at subverting gender roles and social hierarchies. Magic, astrology and tarot cards are tools for recovering the feminine power that has been forbidden for centuries. In her vision, matriarchy, cooking and alchemy are instruments of transformation and creative and spiritual mysticism. Finally, being cosmopolitan, stateless, a woman who survived mental exile, and illness are essential aspects of her identity. The period in which Leonora was hospitalized in a psychiatric hospital in Santander, Spain, deserves a separate mention, where she underwent inhumane treatment, which she would later recount in the novel Down Below (1972), in which the pain of trauma is transformed into the strength of creativity and denunciation. Let us remember that Carrington was also a great writer, introduced from a young age to the reading of authors such as James Stephens, Lewis Carroll, Beatrix Potter and Edward Lear who would greatly influence her.
Leonora Carrington, “Sisters of the Moon, Fantasia”, 1933, watercolor, graphite, and ink on paper, 25 x 18 cm, private collection, photo courtesy Gallery Wendi Norris, San Francisco © Estate of Leonora Carrington, by SIAE 2025
The exhibition is divided into five sections, some chronological and others thematic, each linked to a pivotal moment in Leonora Carrington’s career. The section “Bride of the Wind”, a nickname she received from her great love, Max Ernst, stands out. This section showcases the creations created for the total work of art that was the couple’s shared home in Saint-Martin-d’Ardèche, in the south of France. A series of documents and photographs transport us back in time, making this journey as magical as the artist herself. Leonora Carrington was also a pioneer of the connection between art and the environment, interpreted from a feminine perspective. Her denunciation of male predatory attitudes in favor of female autonomy is an absolutely central and important theme. A “feminism of consciousness”, conscious and inclusive of all genders through a harmonious worldview rooted in the principles of alchemy, makes her work not simply an escape from the past, but an act of creation and resilience. This exhibition celebrates not only the artist, but also the woman, the writer, the intellectual and the activist, offering the public an esoteric insight into her world. Freedom of expression finds in this woman a fundamental spokesperson for a development of contemporary art that cannot remain impassive in the face of diversity.
Info:
Leonora Carrington
curated by Tere Arcq and Carlos Martin
20/09/2025 – 11/01/2026
Palazzo Reale Milano
Piazza Duomo, 12 – Milano
.palazzorealemilano.it
Born in 1987. Freelance publisher, passionate about contemporary art and the interaction between visual arts. She graduated from DAMS in Bologna in 2013 with a thesis on the relationship between Futurism and Fashion. She is always looking for emerging artists and discovering subcultures. She collaborated for several years with D’Ars Magazine (now archive) and currently collaborates with ViralWave as art manager and with Juliet Art Magazine.
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