Leonora Carrington

When Stella Snead (1910–2006) met fellow painter Leonora Carrington at the London art academy of the French Cubist artist Amédée Ozenfant in 1936, she was immediately struck by Carrington’s mischievousness. Both excellent draftswomen, the two shared a growing interest in Surrealist art and poetry and a belief in the spiritual nature of animals. By the time they met again in New York in 1941, Carrington had developed a personal Surrealist vocabulary drawn from her own emotional experiences. Here her meticulous rendering of Snead’s proudly athletic figure signifies physical freedom. Clothed in a transparent sweater and leggings, Snead sits weightlessly outside an enclosed Renaissance structure, which evokes past cultural restraints. Guarded by an observant cat, she reaches toward a nautilus shell whose spiraling compartments suggest life’s unfolding mysteries.