Exhibitions

Leonora Carrington

Paris, France

The first major exhibition in France devoted exclusively to Leonora Carrington’s work.

Leonora Carrington, Artes 110, 1944

Image credit

© NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale; gift of Pearl and Stanley Goodman © 2026 Estate of Leonora Carrington / ADAGP, Paris

Meet the artist

The Movement

Surrealism

ArtLovers Tip

Enter the exhibition like you’re entering a spellbook. Don’t ask only “what does this mean?” Ask: what is changing here? Carrington’s power is in metamorphosis — a woman becomes animal, a room becomes ritual, a myth becomes personal, and imagination becomes a form of freedom.

Exhibition Highlights - What you'll see

Surrealism, magical symbolism, mythological imagination, feminist visual language and hybrid worlds between human, animal and spirit.

Carrington was a major figure of Surrealism, but her work feels larger than any single movement. Born in Britain and later based in Mexico, she developed a symbolic universe shaped by mythology, alchemy, the occult, metamorphosis and personal freedom.

She was a feminist, a pioneering environmentalist, a mother, and a traveler who navigated both the physical world and the depths of her own mind. Her life—shaped by her spiritual search and personal resilience—left behind a legacy that is as radical as it is inspiring.

This exhibition presents Carrington as a total artist: not only a painter, but a creator of visual worlds where identity is never fixed. The Musée du Luxembourg frames her as a kind of “Vitruvian Woman” — a figure of harmony, invention and transformation.

You’re watching:

  • Women who become guides, magicians, mothers, rebels or mythical beings
  • Animals that feel like companions, alter egos or spiritual messengers
  • Hybrid figures between human and non-human
  • Tables, houses, forests and rituals charged with hidden meaning
  • A surrealist language that feels intimate, strange and deeply independent

The result is not fantasy as escape. It is fantasy as knowledge — a way to imagine other forms of life, power and freedom.

Worth the trip

Yes — absolutely. Especially if you want Surrealism beyond Dalí, Magritte and the male canon.

Carrington matters because she refused to be reduced to muse, lover or secondary figure. Her work created a powerful symbolic language of transformation, female agency and otherworldly intelligence.

This is a major Paris exhibition and a rare chance to see Carrington’s universe gathered in depth. For Artlovers, it is especially meaningful because it changes the way you read Surrealism: less as dream spectacle, more as a radical space where identity, gender, mythology and imagination can be rebuilt.

How to experience it

Don’t try to “decode” every symbol immediately. Let the images behave like myths.

Look for transformations: women into animals, bodies into spirits, interiors into rituals.

Pay attention to tables, meals, houses and domestic spaces — Carrington often turns them into magical stages.

Think about Mexico not as background, but as a place where her visual language expanded.

Compare her Surrealism with male Surrealists: her world is not about objectifying the mysterious woman, but letting her become the force of transformation.

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