Leonora Carrington’s art is everywhere on Instagram now. Over a decade after her death, her mythic worlds and wild women still feel urgent.
Essential. Alive.
Leonora was born under a Sun in Aries with the Moon in Libra; a tension between fierce individuality and relational grace. Her Moon opposed Venus in Aries, and Lilith, also in Aries, carved her path in exile and fire.
She was built for rebellion.
She was born to refuse.
Some women fit in.
Some smooth their edges, soften their spines and smile through silencing.
And then there are women like Leonora Carrington, who broke the mould, shattered the frame and painted the pieces into another dimension.
Born on April 6, 1917, under the first fire sign of brave Aries, Leonora came into the world as a spark and chose to become a flame.
Her Sun said to create.
Her bones said run.
Her soul said rebel.
So she did.
Born to Privilege, Destined for Freedom
Leonora was raised in a world of wealth and expectations. Her father, a textile magnate, envisioned a daughter adorned in decorum and diamonds. However, Leonora rejected the ornamental life.
Refusal became her art form.
She received education from governesses, nuns, and tutors, often being expelled from convent schools due to her defiance. Eventually, she was sent to Florence to study at Mrs. Penrose’s Academy of Art.
Upon returning to London, Leonora was expected to be presented at Court as a polished debutante, ready for the marriage market. Instead, she tucked Aldous Huxley’s Eyeless in Gaza under her arm and refused to play the part.
She wasn’t there to be chosen.
She was there to choose.
To create.
To conjure.
To resist.
Crookhey Hall as Home: A Gothic Portal
From 1920 to 1927, Leonora lived at Crookhey Hall, a Gothic Revival mansion in Lancashire. It wasn’t just a home. It was a psychic gateway.
Think secret staircases. Velvet shadows. Echoes of ancestors in the walls.
Crookhey taught her that the veil is thin. That the visible is never the whole story.
She didn’t just live there. She began there.
Rejecting the Roles Assigned to Her
In 1937, Leonora met the German surrealist Max Ernst. Their relationship transported her into the mythic, erotic and radical world of Parisian surrealism. But even there, surrounded by wild minds, she wasn’t content to be someone’s muse.
She came to be the conjurer.
She painted. She wrote. She cast spells.
Then the war came. Ernst was arrested.
Leonora fled to Spain, where her psychic collapse led to brutal institutionalisation. She was drugged, confined and nearly erased.
But she refused to be broken.
She wrote Down Below, a surreal, raw, visionary account of madness and survival. It wasn’t just a memoir. It was resurrection. It was resistant in ink.
Like Lilith, Leonora Chose Exile Over Obedience
Like Lilith, Adam’s first wife and the first feminist, Leonora walked away rather than submit.
She left the society that tried to silence her.She found freedom in Mexico City, where she rebuilt herself in colour, symbol and spell.
There, alongside visionaries like Remedios Varo and Frida Kahlo, she created a matriarchal, mystical cosmos.
She painted shapeshifters, priestesses and half-animal hybrids.
She studied alchemy, Kabbalah, Celtic myth and feminist theory.
She raised her sons in a house filled with lions and dreams.
She didn’t bend to the art market.
She didn’t ask for permission.
She created her own dimension.
Why Leonora Matters Now
Because we are still asked to shrink.
To be nice.
To make sense to men.
Leonora didn’t.
And she thrived.
She didn’t just make art, she made portals.
She didn’t just break rules, she built realms.
Leonora’s legacy is a howl of refusal and a hymn of becoming.
If you’ve ever…
Been called too intense, too strange, too much
If your life feels like a spiral, not a straight line
If you’ve cracked open and made something sacred from the shards
Leonora is your muse. Your mirror. Your map.
Her art, life and legacy serves to remind you:
- Your imagination is a tool of resistance
- Your refusal can be holy
- You don’t have to be understood to be powerful
- Exile can be liberation
- Creating is survival
- Weird is sacred.
Keep dreaming.
Keep conjuring.
Keep creating the world you want to live in.
