Edge Hill University in Ormskirk celebrated at the end of June the Centenary of the birth in Lancashire of one of the world's most renowned surrealist artists, Leonora Carrington.
Born in 1917 in Clayton Le Woods, Chorley, and raised in Lancashire, Leonora became a 'national treasure' in her adoptive home of Mexico, where she lived from 1942 till her death in 2011. She arrived in Mexico via an art fueled adventure that took in the legendary International Surrealist Exhibition in London in 1936; life with Dadaist and Surrealist, Max Ernst, in France; a catastrophic breakdown in Spain; escape to New York's artistic milieu followed by a warm welcome from Mexico, a country then liberally embracing European artists and intellectuals in flight from Nazism.
100+ attendees assembled at the University's 'creative campus' just outside Ormskirk on June 30th for a day of academic papers, talks, films, dance performances, drama, poetry and short stories, all based on or responding to Leonora's vast repertoire of creative work, both visual and literary.
International academics from Universities in Ireland, France, Spain, Germany, France and Mexico visited Edge Hill University to take part in the Symposium, joining many similarly minded from a host of UK Universities.
Continue reading "Guest blog - Re Lancastrianising Leonora" »
