Leonora Carrington’s Sculptures Take Center Stage in New York
A new exhibition at L’Space Gallery in New York is shifting attention to a side of Leonora Carrington (1917–2011) that is often overshadowed by her paintings and writing: her sculpture. “Shape of Dreams: Sculptures by Leonora Carrington,” produced with Consigna Gallery of Mexico City and supported by the Leonora Carrington Council, gathers bronze works, jewelry, and an immersive Tarot installation that extends the artist’s surrealist world into three dimensions.
Carrington, born in Lancashire, England, encountered Max Ernst’s work at the International Surrealist Exhibition in London in 1936, an encounter that helped shape her early artistic direction. After moving to Mexico City in the early 1940s, following the outbreak of World War II, she developed a practice that moved fluidly across painting, theater, writing, and sculpture. Mythology, folklore, and the occult remained central to that vision, and the exhibition makes clear how naturally those themes translated into objects meant to be encountered in space rather than on a wall.
Among the standout works is “The Palmist,” an enigmatic figure dressed with the ceremonial presence of a priestess or goddess. The sculpture is especially significant because it was Carrington’s first monumental work made for public display. Five years after her death in 2011, a monumental edition was permanently installed in the Jardín del Antiguo Palacio del Arzobispado in Mexico City, underscoring the work’s lasting place in her legacy.
Also on view is “La Inventora del Atole,” which draws on Mesoamerican history and the long cultural life of atole, the hot beverage associated with nourishment and care. “The Ship of Cranes” adds to the exhibition’s sense of ritual and transformation, while the presentation’s jewelry pieces echo the same sculptural imagination in smaller form.
The exhibition’s most unusual element is a Tarot Reading Booth, where visitors choose a card from a deck designed by Carrington and receive a reading delivered by an A.I. reconstruction of the artist’s voice in English, Spanish, and French. The show also includes works by Pablo Weisz Carrington, including one made in collaboration with his mother, offering a rare glimpse into the artist’s broader creative circle.
“Shape of Dreams: Sculptures by Leonora Carrington” remains on view at L’Space Gallery through June 27, 2026, and it offers a focused look at how Carrington turned surrealist ideas into tactile, inhabited form.
