Daughter of the president of Imperial Chemical Industries, Carrington studied painting at Amédée Ozenfant's Academy of Fine Arts in 1936, while he was residing in London. Carrington met Max Ernst in 1936 at the International Surrealist Exhibit, in London, and accompanied him to Paris in 1937. The next year, they began living together at Saint-Martind'Ardèche, in Provence. Carrington wrote fantastical tales that were collected in The House of Fear (1938) and The Oval Lady Surreal Stories (1939). Her paintings, combining humor and terror, expressed the mood of Ann Radcliffe's Gothic novels. Having been treated for a nervous breakdown in 1940, she described her experiences in an autobiographical work, Down Below (1943). She moved to New York and continued to paint pictures evoking the idea of a personal wonderland, as in Dans le jardin il joue tranquillement de la cornemuse...(1944), then moved to Mexico where her painting has henceforth been inspired by Aztec myths. 

Leonora Carrington

Born 1917 in London; died 2011 in Mexico City, Mexico 

And Then We Saw the Daughter of the Minotaur, Oil on Canvas, 1953