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Lot Essay
We are grateful to Susan Aberth, Ph.D. for her assistance cataloguing this work.
Leonora Carrington very rarely collaborated with anyone, artistically or otherwise and once stated that she had “an allergy to collaboration.”[1] Nevertheless, there are some notable exceptions, such as Le Recontre, the painting she and Max Ernst created together while living in Saint-Martin d’Ardèche, France around 1939. Although we can detect the hand of one or the other in certain sections of this work, the result of their collaboration is altogether startling and unique. The 1953 oil painting The Journeys of Prester John created by Carrington and the British poet and art collector Edward James was done more in the spirit of the surrealist cadaver exquis. The two met in the 1940s and James arranged for her to have a one-person show at the Pierre Matisse Gallery in New York City in 1948. In 1947 James acquired a large piece of land near the village of Xilitla, San Luis Potosí and created a magical environment with orchids, animals and fantastical surrealist constructions that vacillated between architecture and sculpture. Dubbed “Las Pozas” (The Pools), James spent much time there with his long-time friend Plutarco Gastélum, overseeing its construction in between his many travels. Carrington visited him at Las Pozas on several occasions and even painted murals there in 1965. James and Carrington had much in common artistically as he was an avid collector of Surrealism (and of her work), but most certainly they also shared a British education (replete with Biblical stories) and a love of fairy tales.
The subject of the painting, therefore, is one that would have appealed to both of them – a legendary king descended from the Three Magi. The Prester John myth originated during the Crusades when it was rumored that a fabulously wealthy Christian king-priest was going to help fight the Muslims in the Holy Land. Prester John hailed from an unknown location in the East described as a marvelous place of peace and beauty that at some point was identified with the African Christian nation of Ethiopia. In the painting we can see the black king with his ornate crown and medieval cross riding a hybrid creature part-deer part-bird. He addresses a sphinxlike entity while between them above arises a winged genii or angelical being and below a small brown dragon. The hilly landscape has trees and pillared temples, while at the sphinx’s feet is a locked treasure chest. The verso of the painting also has a sphinx, this time more traditionally Egyptian, and a two-storied temple, set in a garden while the title and date floats across the sky. In both paintings the sky is streaked with red and mysterious puffs of clouds. Carrington’s imagination and stylistic touches are readily discernable – the mythic creatures, delicate hands, careful rendered tree branches and roots, etc.
An unsent letter from James to Carrington, discovered by the Edward James scholar, Irene Herner in the archive of his West Dean home in England, sheds some light on the creation of this work. Apparently Carrington had gifted him with an unfinished painting and had given him permission to finish it, a gesture he cherished and which afforded him a sense of “fairy-land contentment.”[2] The letter goes on to express his disappointment that they could not work together more, as apparently her “allergy to collaboration” had recently manifested itself in some harsh rebukes regarding any future projects between them. Luckily The Journeys of Prester John survived in James’ home in Xilitla to give testimony to the long-standing friendship between these eccentric British mavericks.
Susan Aberth, Ph.D, Associate Professor, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson
1 Leonora Carrington and the House of Fear, produced and directed by Kim Evans. 60 minute documentary film, BBC, 1992.
2 Irene Herner, Edward James y Plutarco Gastélum in Xilitla. Mexico City: Artes Gráficas Panorama, 273.
Leonora Carrington very rarely collaborated with anyone, artistically or otherwise and once stated that she had “an allergy to collaboration.”[1] Nevertheless, there are some notable exceptions, such as Le Recontre, the painting she and Max Ernst created together while living in Saint-Martin d’Ardèche, France around 1939. Although we can detect the hand of one or the other in certain sections of this work, the result of their collaboration is altogether startling and unique. The 1953 oil painting The Journeys of Prester John created by Carrington and the British poet and art collector Edward James was done more in the spirit of the surrealist cadaver exquis. The two met in the 1940s and James arranged for her to have a one-person show at the Pierre Matisse Gallery in New York City in 1948. In 1947 James acquired a large piece of land near the village of Xilitla, San Luis Potosí and created a magical environment with orchids, animals and fantastical surrealist constructions that vacillated between architecture and sculpture. Dubbed “Las Pozas” (The Pools), James spent much time there with his long-time friend Plutarco Gastélum, overseeing its construction in between his many travels. Carrington visited him at Las Pozas on several occasions and even painted murals there in 1965. James and Carrington had much in common artistically as he was an avid collector of Surrealism (and of her work), but most certainly they also shared a British education (replete with Biblical stories) and a love of fairy tales.
The subject of the painting, therefore, is one that would have appealed to both of them – a legendary king descended from the Three Magi. The Prester John myth originated during the Crusades when it was rumored that a fabulously wealthy Christian king-priest was going to help fight the Muslims in the Holy Land. Prester John hailed from an unknown location in the East described as a marvelous place of peace and beauty that at some point was identified with the African Christian nation of Ethiopia. In the painting we can see the black king with his ornate crown and medieval cross riding a hybrid creature part-deer part-bird. He addresses a sphinxlike entity while between them above arises a winged genii or angelical being and below a small brown dragon. The hilly landscape has trees and pillared temples, while at the sphinx’s feet is a locked treasure chest. The verso of the painting also has a sphinx, this time more traditionally Egyptian, and a two-storied temple, set in a garden while the title and date floats across the sky. In both paintings the sky is streaked with red and mysterious puffs of clouds. Carrington’s imagination and stylistic touches are readily discernable – the mythic creatures, delicate hands, careful rendered tree branches and roots, etc.
An unsent letter from James to Carrington, discovered by the Edward James scholar, Irene Herner in the archive of his West Dean home in England, sheds some light on the creation of this work. Apparently Carrington had gifted him with an unfinished painting and had given him permission to finish it, a gesture he cherished and which afforded him a sense of “fairy-land contentment.”[2] The letter goes on to express his disappointment that they could not work together more, as apparently her “allergy to collaboration” had recently manifested itself in some harsh rebukes regarding any future projects between them. Luckily The Journeys of Prester John survived in James’ home in Xilitla to give testimony to the long-standing friendship between these eccentric British mavericks.
Susan Aberth, Ph.D, Associate Professor, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson
1 Leonora Carrington and the House of Fear, produced and directed by Kim Evans. 60 minute documentary film, BBC, 1992.
2 Irene Herner, Edward James y Plutarco Gastélum in Xilitla. Mexico City: Artes Gráficas Panorama, 273.