Leonora Carrington’s ‘And Then We Saw the Daughter of the Minotaur’

In this video, Museum of Modern Art member specialist Elba Rodriguez turns the spotlight on a work by British-Mexican artist, Leonora Carrington: ‘And Then We Saw the Daughter of the Minotaur’.

Completed in 1953, the oil on canvas painting draws on the artist’s interests in the fantastical and occult. Mysterious glass orbs pull at the tablecloth as though guided by a force of their own. At the right of the painting, something not-quite-human dances toward the viewer.

No wonder that Edward James, Carrington’s friend and patron, once described her work as “brewed” rather than painted.

Born on April 6, 1917 in Clayton Green, Lancashire, Carrington studied painting in Florence, and later attended the Chelsea School of Art in London. There, she met a number of the Surrealists visiting England for an exhibition, and was quickly drawn into their milieu. She had a short-lived romance with older German painter Max Ernst, but after he fled to the US to escape World War II persecution, Carrington was hospitalised with a mental breakdown.

After recuperating, she emigrated to Mexico, resumed painting, and became a part of the women’s liberation movement. By the time of her death in 2011 at the age of 94, the artist had established herself as an integral figure in the short-lived Surrealist movement.

Today, Carrington’s works are included in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, and the Tate Gallery in London, among others.

View the original video here.

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