Book review: The Surreal Life Of Leonora Carrington

BORN 100 years ago, surrealist artist and writer Leonora Carrington only died in 2011, making her a fascinating link to a long-gone world.

Journalist Joanna Moorhead is Carrington’s cousin, and befriended her in her last years, enabling a unique perspective for this biography-cum-memoir.

Where art historians have often presented Carrington’s family as an undifferentiated mass of conventional disapproval, Moorhead’s intimate familiarity with the background enables her to tease out informative specifics, especially as regards the mother-daughter relationship.