'Surreal Friends' is a major season of international exhibitions celebrating the personal and artistic friendships of three leading women surrealist artists. Stefan van Raay, Director of Pallant House Gallery and Curator of 'Surreal Friends' introduces the show in an interview with Pallant House Gallerys Press Officer Emma Robertson.

Emma Robertson

Can you give us a brief overview of 'Surreal Friends'? What are its key themes?

Stefan van Raay

The story of Surreal Friends is basically the story of the twentieth century, the story of war and what happens when people are displaced. It focuses on the friendship between three women, the English painter Leonora Carrington, the Spanish painter Remedios Varo and the Hungarian photographer Kati Horna, who met in Mexico in 1943 and created a surrogate family in a new country.

All three women had found refuge in Mexico City after they had lived what we would see as an experience of a lifetime though they were only in their twenties and early thirties. They had all been participants in major world events: the Spanish Civil War, the outbreak of the Second World War, and Surrealism in Paris. The Mexican Government under President Cárdenas opened its borders to the Republican refugees from Spain and also to refugees from the war: political activists, intellectuals and artists. The policy - which was very much based on an idea of international solidarity - is key to the story of the 'Surreal Friends' who, with many other Europeans, became part of Mexico's cultural history of the 20th century.

ER

Why did you decide to programme these exhibitions here at Pallant House Gallery? Is the timing significant?

SVR

There are many reasons. Firstly, there is a local connection: we are only ten minutes from West Dean and Edward James who lived there, was a great friend of all three artists – particularly Carrington. James went to Mexico in 1946 just after the war where he met his friend Plutarco Gastelum with whom he created the Surrealist garden Las Pozas in the jungle valley of Xilitla. Carrington designed one of the pavilions and James became a great patron of her work - he had over 100 pieces by her in his collection at one point.

Also, the focus in the past has been very much on the male surrealists, but these exhibitions look at what women surrealists have contributed and how they created their own brand of surrealism. It fits well into our series of women surrealist exhibitions which started in autumn 2008 with Eileen Agar, and then Lee Miller and Friends in 2009. Our collection is mainly Modern British Art but through Carrington we also introduce her close friends who are mostly unknown in this country so it will be a completely new discovery for many people.

Finally, this year marks 200 years ago since Mexico became independent from Spain and 100 years since the Mexican revolution started. The Mexican revolution was the first major revolution of the twentieth century and it changed Mexico dramatically. The story of Surreal Friends is directly linked with Mexican 20th Century history.

ER

Carrington is the only living member of the group. Can you tell us a bit more about your personal impression of her as she is today?

SVR

Carrington is one of the most revered artists in Mexico. She has been given every possible honour: citizenship of Mexico City and the National Arts award and people are constantly paying homage to her but, at 93, her main concern is not her reputation as an artist- it is her daily environment, her two sons, her dog, very mundane things. She is quite modest about her achievements - she says nobody who is intelligent can fail to be modest about their achievements. One of the great things about her is her British sense of humour. If you look at her paintings you can see influences such as Lewis Carroll, Irish fairy tales, the Kabalah, and Buddhism but you can also see evidence of a tongue in cheek sense of humour.

The past is very much alive to Carrington - her childhood, her education in convent schools (which she hated), going to art school in London, meeting Max Ernst, falling in love, joining him in Paris and becoming part of the inner circle of the art world. But, at the same time, she is interested in now. The first thing she says when you visit her is: 'tell me what's going on in the world'. She has very outspoken views on issues such as universal access to birth control and the total legalisation of drugs though mostly she has stayed away from politics - except for during the 1968 student revolt in Mexico City when the Government killed hundreds of students at a demo. Carrington marched with her two sons, ran a printing press from her house and there was even a danger that she and her sons would be arrested so she fled the country and went into hiding in New Orleans before later returning to Mexico City.

ER

All three women influenced each other artistically as well as personally especially Varo and Carrington. What are some of the similarities/ differences?

SVR

When Varo and Carrington met they immediately sparked each other off. Varo had been involved in the surrealist movement in Spain and later in Paris with Benjamin Péret and she and Carrington had first met there - only once according to Leonora – but it was in Mexico that they met properly. They were apparently very funny together and had endless sessions about art and the meaning of life, the universe, the surreal, alchemy, and witchcraft. There is no doubt that Carrington stimulated Varo. Varo had worked previously in design for campaigns - and in the exhibition there are examples of designs she made for Bayer in Mexico - but it was Leonora who encouraged her to become an independent painter in the late 1940s up to her death in 1963. When she had her first exhibition in 1956 all her paintings sold out and people started to put themselves on a waiting list for her work. There are interesting differences though: Carrington is more about tone and colour, while Varo is much more about line and form. That is because Varo's father was an engineer and he taught her to draw so her paintings are incredibly precise. Also Varo met Walter Gruien who had a successful music shop in Mexico City so she could work in a more carefree way while Carrington had to work to earn money.

Horna was an extremely interesting woman and a very good photographer. She was a childhood friend of Chiki Weisz, the man Leonora married. He was Hungarian- Jewish like Horna and it is probably through that connection that everybody met each other. Horna was a very kind and quite self-effacing woman and she was the most down to earth of the three. They all lived in the same area in Colonia Roma in Mexico City which was a hub of the exiled artists, intellectuals and the refugees from Europe and were in each other's kitchens all the time, eating together and having parties. Horna had to earn a living by photographing the cultural elite of Mexico and also by reportage but some of her own projects have very clear surreal elements. That's quite logical because she was part of the circle of Lajos Kassak in Budapest, the man who introduced the latest artistic developments to Budapest, as was Chiki Weisz and Kati Horna's other childhood friend Robert Capa. Capa of course became very famous with his war photography but I think some of Horna's war photography is on a par with his. The three women collaborated together on projects such as the photograph of Remedios Varo in a mask by Carrington taken by Horna which is in the exhibition. Carrington made a doll for Norah Horna, Kati Horna's daughter and the photograph Kati took of it is also in the exhibition, and José Horna collaborated with Carrington and his wife.

ER

Many of Carrington's works contain figures of three women – do they refer to the 'Surreal Friends'? Can you explain any more of Carrington and Varo's symbolism?

SVR

It is a logical step that the figures refer to them either in reality or symbolically. They are very often involved in witchcraft or alchemy or in the process of being transformed into a horse, a crow. The kitchen table recurs again and again and cooking as a form of alchemy. The tempera they used to paint with is another variant of this. I have actually asked Leonora to explain her symbolism but she gently refuses to explain, saying she doesn't know - it just comes out. Sometimes you get a hint though: once I asked her about 'Darvault' and she told me she had stayed in a house like that when she was in France and another time she did admit that the two children in 'And then we saw the Daughter of the Minotaur' were her own. So, she will refer to some practical things but otherwise she will refuse to answer. There are also a lot of recurring elements such as a search for an unseen world or the meaning of the universe. Leonora never belonged to a belief system but the one closest to her beliefs is Tibetan Buddhism. She says it is not a religion, it is more a way of life. Now she says the only thing she knows is that she doesn't know but she is now at ease with it.