Overview

A significantly expanded edition of Carrington's acclaimed Tarot series, featuring new archival images and research. The British-born Mexican surrealist Leonora Carrington (1917–2011) spent a lifetime exploring the esoteric traditions of diverse cultures, and incorporated their ideas and symbols into her artistic and literary oeuvre. Tibetan Buddhism, the Kabbalah, ancient Egyptian and Mesopotamian magic, Celtic mythology, witchcraft, astrology and the Tarot were filtered through her feminist lens to create a visionary, woman-centered worldview. Carrington created a spectacular Major Arcana Tarot deck sometime during the 1950s, laying gold and silver leaf over brilliant color. Exhibited for the first time during her centennial exhibition Leonora Carrington: Magical Tales in 2018, this extraordinary work was a revelation for the public and inspired the publication of The Tarot of Leonora Carrington. This second, considerably expanded edition - encouraged by the overwhelmingly positive reception of Fulgur's publication in 2020 - explores further the central position that the Tarot held in Carrington's work. The volume includes an introductory text by her son Gabriel Weisz Carrington, who recalls his mother's long involvement with the Tarot, followed by a revised and more extensive essay by scholar Susan Aberth and curator Tere Arcq, including detailed analysis of each card: their color symbolism, their relationship to other works and their iconographic origins in ancient esoteric beliefs, including the Mesoamerican influences of her adopted country. This new edition also reproduces previously unpublished photographs and images, as well as exciting new research into Carrington's influences, emphasising the authors' claim that her work on the Major Arcana represents an esoteric roadmap to Carrington's feminist vision and wish for a new global gender equality toward a better ecological future for our planet. SELLING POINTS: . British-born, Mexican Surrealist artist and writer, Leonora Carrington, created her own tarot cards. Her extraordinary hand-painted archetypes of the 22 major arcana were discovered in 2018 . This NEW, expanded and redesigned edition of the much-acclaimed 2020 book features an introductory text by the artist's son, Gabriel Weisz, reproduces previously unpublished photographs and images, and offers new research, 48 more pages, 20 more images . Leonora Carrington is one of the artists featured in the 2022 Venice Biennale. The exhibition's title, The Milk of Dreams, is taken from the title of a Carrington children's book 82 illustrations

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A glimpse into new realms...--Britt Stigler All Arts/WNET Brings reflections on the artist's esoteric practice together with a lavish facsimile of Carrington's private illustrated tarot deck, unearthed by the authors while researching their 2018 exhibition, Leonora Carrington: Magical Tales, at the Museo de Arte Moderno in Mexico City.--Chloe Wyma Artforum It was only in 2017 that [Carrington's] hand painted deck of tarot cards was unearthed from her archive. Now a new book reveals the creation of her intricate, surrealistic version of the Major Arcana--the tarot's 22 trump cards depicting the grandest themes and ideas of life, among them love, power and death.--Baya Simons Financial Times Leonora Carrington's pictorial universe is populated by intertwined references of an overflowing imagination...--Germaine Gomez Haro La Jornada Reproduces [Leonora Carrington's] newly discovered illustration of the Major Arcana. The tarot is a chameleon, yes, but as Carrington's vision of it shows, so, too, is it a chance for both the imposition and the abandonment of narrative; in Carrington's hands, as with her fiction, there is an embrace of the illogical, the fictive, the dream.--Rhian Sasseen Paris Review As well as unlocking the secrets to every reader's fate (if you believe in that sort of thing), the book offers an intriguing new insight into one of the most fascinating minds of the 20th century. The in-depth essay that accompanies the images, by Carrington experts Susan Aberth and Tere Arcq, sees Carrington's Tarot as a medium (the word here is particularly appropriate) through which to interpret the complex underlying themes of her wider canon of work. But it's also, quite simply, a beautiful object, its images joyously revelling in their combinations of bright colour, subtle line-drawn textures and shining metallic surfaces. All in all, it's enough to make you wonder whether, perhaps, we could all do with just a touch more gold leaf in our lives.-- Inigo Carrington's tarot cards are populated by her characteristically fey figures, often androgynes or human-animal hybrids, set against backdrops in deep, full hues: cobalt, lapis, mulberry, gold. She drew upon archetypal decks including gilded examples from 15th century Italy, the Tarot of Marseilles beloved by many Surrealists, and the popular Rider-Waite deck from 1909. [...] The book's analysis of drawings and paintings spanning Carrington's career elucidates that tarot iconography was likewise an animating force in her artwork.--Cassie Packard Hyperallergic Immerse yourself in myths ancient and modern, tantalising Tarot, Jungian archetypes, a history of magic, a dictionary of symbols or maybe just surreal things - let Leonora Carrington be your guiding star when it comes to all things mystical.--Francesca Carington Tatler The Tarot of Leonora Carrington shows how she connected her unconscious creative persona with what has been encompassed into multiple tarot books she used as a guide. Designs of the cards and colours of their background give us an inside into Leonora's head and her understanding of each card. Her cards allow us to dig deeper into ourselves, discover things we never knew about our consciousness.--Weronika Kusmider Cent Magazine [A] revelation, showcasing Carrington's distinctive approach and style in a series of iconic images that shimmer with gold and silver leaf.--Louise Benson Elephant Another portal into the artist's enigmatic imagination... For Carrington, tarot was more than a divination tool; it was a stimulus to the unconscious mind, a guide for the exploration of the psyche, as Aberth and Arcq write. She was a tireless conjurer of subliminal domains. In envisioning tarot, she only continued to transcend the bounds of sense.--Claire Voon Art & Object Leonora Carrington's life was full of twists and turns. She was a celebrated surrealist artist, Max Ernst's lover and mental-asylum inmate in the 1930s, and then a women's rights campaigner in 1970s Mexico. With so much drama in her life, it's not surprising she looked for belief systems. The tarot fascinated her so much she created her own surrealist pack. They lay undiscovered in her archive until a 2018 retrospective in Mexico City and are now gathered in [this] new book--Alice Fisher Guardian For Carrington and the surrealists two world wars were proof enough that the world did not operate with anything resembling rationality. Amidst the turbulence of today, perhaps the revival of interest in her and her tarot deck was always on the cards.--Robert Weinberg Daily Telegraph If not an oracle, how about consulting tarot cards as conceived by one of the 20th century's visionary minds? This dreamscape of a book collects the hand-painted Major Arcana set--the 22 most potent, familiar archetypes in the deck--by the artist and writer Leonora Carrington. She was a longtime reader of the cards, but saw them not as a tool of divination per se, but rather as a guide for the exploration of the psyche, Susan Aberth and Tere Arcq write in their accompanying essay. The tarot, Carrington once said, is a chameleon. Conventional exploration being rather limited, the artist's cards--blank-faced Justice against indigo; Moon, flanked by howling dogs--warrant dropping anchor and staying awhile. Afterwards, for a classic Carrington snack, snip a lock of hair from your bedmate while they sleep and whisk it into an omelette. Stuff of legend.--Laura Regensdorf Vanity Fair

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