0:00:08 > 0:00:11AMBIENT MUSIC PLAYS
0:00:18 > 0:00:23Hidden away in a corner of Mexico City, a reclusive artist lived and
0:00:23 > 0:00:25worked for more than half a century.
0:00:31 > 0:00:34She was revered by the Mexican art world, but never courted publicity,
0:00:34 > 0:00:37and was little-known overseas.
0:00:42 > 0:00:46Surprisingly, she was English, and her name was Leonora Carrington.
0:00:50 > 0:00:54Now, 100 years since her birth, the spotlight is at last upon her...
0:00:56 > 0:01:00..and her work is being celebrated worldwide by museums
0:01:00 > 0:01:02and high-profile admirers.
0:01:03 > 0:01:05Collectors are starting to take note.
0:01:08 > 0:01:11But what story lay behind this forgotten artist
0:01:11 > 0:01:13who is inspiring a new generation?
0:01:14 > 0:01:18Leonora had once been at the epicentre of Surrealism,
0:01:18 > 0:01:20Europe's most revolutionary art scene...
0:01:23 > 0:01:26and had rubbed shoulders with the greats of 20th-century art.
0:01:34 > 0:01:37What led this woman, who conquered Paris in the 1930s,
0:01:37 > 0:01:40to a life in exile so far from home?
0:01:42 > 0:01:44As it turned out,
0:01:44 > 0:01:47hers was a very strange and extraordinary story indeed.
0:01:48 > 0:01:53Well, I think it's never too late to mend...
0:01:53 > 0:01:56to mend the fact that I'm ignored in my own country.
0:02:10 > 0:02:13AMBIENT MUSIC PLAYS
0:02:37 > 0:02:42My mother had imaginary and real worlds,
0:02:42 > 0:02:44sort of juxtaposed.
0:02:47 > 0:02:51She didn't feel that one was as alien to the other.
0:02:53 > 0:02:59And my mother felt that there was always fantastic in the real
0:02:59 > 0:03:02and the other way round...
0:03:04 > 0:03:07..and the mysterious was always around the corner.
0:03:10 > 0:03:14I was never entirely sure which side of the canvas she was on.
0:03:16 > 0:03:19She seemed, in her mind, to inhabit
0:03:19 > 0:03:22the places that she painted and the
0:03:22 > 0:03:24creatures that she drew, they were
0:03:24 > 0:03:26just like extensions of her life.
0:03:32 > 0:03:36Everything came from dreams she had had,
0:03:36 > 0:03:40in some way interpreted into the canvas.
0:03:42 > 0:03:47We can look at those pictures of hers and walk around inside them and
0:03:47 > 0:03:49meet these strange creatures that are there.
0:03:49 > 0:03:53They're usually quite benign, some of them are a bit scary.
0:03:57 > 0:04:00But it's the sort of creatures that I would be very glad to meet in my
0:04:00 > 0:04:01own dreams.
0:04:08 > 0:04:11I always had access to other worlds, like we all do.
0:04:11 > 0:04:13We all sleep, we all dream.
0:04:18 > 0:04:21That kind of feeling that you have in childhood,
0:04:21 > 0:04:23of things being very mysterious.
0:04:23 > 0:04:26PIANO MUSIC PLAYS
0:04:27 > 0:04:29Do you think anybody escapes their childhood?
0:04:30 > 0:04:32I don't think we do.
0:04:43 > 0:04:49Well, what my mother told me about growing up in England was how she
0:04:49 > 0:04:54would create a whole world of her own,
0:04:54 > 0:04:56because she was a pretty solitary
0:04:56 > 0:04:58little girl.
0:05:01 > 0:05:05She grew up as the only girl in a family with three brothers.
0:05:08 > 0:05:12They played together, but they didn't include her much.
0:05:12 > 0:05:18So, she had to build her own universe, let's say.
0:05:20 > 0:05:24CHILD'S VOICE: Now you must know, Moskoski is not on Earth.
0:05:24 > 0:05:27It is on a little planet called Starvinski.
0:05:29 > 0:05:31Dragons Of Moskoski, chapter one.
0:05:31 > 0:05:34CHIRPING AND CHATTERING
0:05:34 > 0:05:36EERIE MINIMAL MUSIC
0:05:36 > 0:05:40Horiptus is found on the north-west coast of Java.
0:05:40 > 0:05:42Feeds on millet oil seed.
0:05:45 > 0:05:47INSECTS BUZZ
0:05:53 > 0:05:57Her father was a very, very wealthy owner of a textile mill,
0:05:57 > 0:05:59called Harold Carrington,
0:05:59 > 0:06:02and her mother was the daughter of an Irish doctor.
0:06:04 > 0:06:09When Leonora was three, they rented this really stupendous house,
0:06:09 > 0:06:11called Crookhey Hall.
0:06:13 > 0:06:15CAWING
0:06:18 > 0:06:21It was a kind of dark, rather exciting place.
0:06:24 > 0:06:27EERIE BIRDCALLS
0:06:27 > 0:06:32There was a lake. We had a myth that it was bottomless,
0:06:32 > 0:06:34and we weren't allowed to go there alone.
0:06:34 > 0:06:37DOG BARKS
0:06:37 > 0:06:42We did think that there was a ghost in the tower.
0:06:42 > 0:06:44EERIE WAILING
0:07:11 > 0:07:14Her brothers went to boarding school when they were quite young.
0:07:14 > 0:07:18Leonora stayed at home until she was about 11 or 12.
0:07:18 > 0:07:21And, of course, she was isolated, as she didn't have any sisters.
0:07:21 > 0:07:23She was all alone in the nursery with the French governess.
0:07:30 > 0:07:34She was called Mademoiselle Coutable.
0:07:34 > 0:07:35She never liked me.
0:07:37 > 0:07:39I had temper tantrums.
0:07:48 > 0:07:50CHILD'S VOICE: Seen standing in space,
0:07:50 > 0:07:53soft blue and green feathers around its neck.
0:07:53 > 0:07:54Peacock.
0:07:59 > 0:08:02Notes: birds, etc.
0:08:02 > 0:08:06Seen while asleep. Seen alive on a plate.
0:08:06 > 0:08:09Like salad. Coloured green and blue.
0:08:09 > 0:08:12Wet like a frog, and wriggly.
0:08:16 > 0:08:20When she got to, I think, 11, she did go away to school.
0:08:20 > 0:08:22She went to two Catholic boarding schools.
0:08:35 > 0:08:38I was expelled from two schools.
0:08:39 > 0:08:41Both convents.
0:08:43 > 0:08:46I think I was mainly expelled for not collaborating.
0:08:49 > 0:08:52I had a kind of allergy to collaboration.
0:08:52 > 0:08:56The Mother Superior wrote a letter saying,
0:08:56 > 0:09:03"This child is neither capable of study or play,
0:09:03 > 0:09:06"and hence we are returning her to you."
0:09:09 > 0:09:13My grandmother got us some watercolours at first,
0:09:13 > 0:09:17and apparently it was a rather complex set of colours.
0:09:17 > 0:09:19It wasn't just a cheap set.
0:09:27 > 0:09:31My grandmother was probably the most
0:09:31 > 0:09:34instrumental person in that stage,
0:09:34 > 0:09:38because my grandfather was not very
0:09:38 > 0:09:41enthusiastic about her activities,
0:09:41 > 0:09:43and her imagery.
0:09:48 > 0:09:50But my grandmother was a Celt,
0:09:50 > 0:09:54so she thought this was perfectly natural.
0:09:54 > 0:09:57In a way, Leonora's whole world
0:09:57 > 0:10:01started to grow when she was very little.
0:10:01 > 0:10:06All this magical Celtic world that her mother told her about.
0:10:06 > 0:10:11And she had these little paintings of fairy tales in her room, that she
0:10:11 > 0:10:12kept all her life.
0:10:16 > 0:10:20With my grandfather, the relationship was not as close.
0:10:20 > 0:10:26He felt that he had to represent discipline and
0:10:26 > 0:10:28all those things.
0:10:30 > 0:10:33I felt him to be a very powerful presence.
0:10:35 > 0:10:37I remember how frightened I was of him.
0:10:39 > 0:10:41My mother, I think,
0:10:41 > 0:10:44had a sort of love-hate relationship with my grandfather.
0:10:46 > 0:10:49He was strict, but he was fair.
0:10:50 > 0:10:55I think he provided a sort of counterbalance to my grandmother,
0:10:55 > 0:10:58in terms of Leonora.
0:10:58 > 0:11:02But she later came into conflict with him.
0:11:04 > 0:11:07FOOTSTEPS
0:11:12 > 0:11:17He wanted for her to be a certain way,
0:11:17 > 0:11:20a certain upbringing,
0:11:20 > 0:11:23a certain social behaviour and so on.
0:11:23 > 0:11:25REMOTE LAUGHTER AND VOICES
0:11:27 > 0:11:31Certainly, after maybe 16 or 17,
0:11:31 > 0:11:35she was reluctant to be a model of what he wanted.
0:11:46 > 0:11:50Leonora's father was in the process of becoming very wealthy, very fast.
0:11:50 > 0:11:53They were nouveau riche, and they knew it.
0:11:53 > 0:11:55They wanted all the trappings of wealth.
0:12:02 > 0:12:03In a family like that,
0:12:03 > 0:12:06everything rests on who the daughter of the family marries.
0:12:08 > 0:12:10In this family, there was only one daughter,
0:12:10 > 0:12:14so who she married could have carried that family up into the
0:12:14 > 0:12:16higher social echelons, as it were.
0:12:17 > 0:12:23Well, they wanted me to conform to the life of horses and hunt balls
0:12:23 > 0:12:28and being well considered by the local gentry, I suppose.
0:12:28 > 0:12:29That sort of thing.
0:12:31 > 0:12:35So, Leonora went to live in London, to be launched into society,
0:12:35 > 0:12:38to come out as a debutante.
0:12:38 > 0:12:41This was one of my grandfather's plans, to present her to the King.
0:12:43 > 0:12:46So they gussied her up and dressed
0:12:46 > 0:12:49her in these silk garments and so on.
0:12:53 > 0:12:55I wrote.
0:12:55 > 0:12:57There are lots of stories there.
0:12:57 > 0:13:02The Debutante was a book that I wrote afterwards
0:13:02 > 0:13:03about my experiences.
0:13:07 > 0:13:11"When I was a debutante, I often went to the zoo.
0:13:11 > 0:13:14"The animal I got to know best was a young hyena.
0:13:17 > 0:13:19" 'What a bloody nuisance,' I said to her.
0:13:19 > 0:13:21" 'I've got to go to my ball tonight.'
0:13:21 > 0:13:24" 'You're lucky,' she said, 'I'd love to go.'
0:13:27 > 0:13:30" 'Ring for your maid, and when she comes in,
0:13:30 > 0:13:33" 'we'll pounce upon her and tear off her face.
0:13:33 > 0:13:35" 'I'll wear her face tonight, instead of mine.'
0:13:35 > 0:13:38" 'It's not practical,' I said. 'She'll probably die.'
0:13:40 > 0:13:43" 'Somebody will certainly find the corpse, and we'll be put in prison.'
0:13:44 > 0:13:47" 'I'm hungry enough to eat her,' the hyena replied.
0:13:47 > 0:13:50" 'And the bones?' 'As well,' she said.
0:13:54 > 0:13:57"My mother entered, pale with rage.
0:13:57 > 0:14:01" 'We'd just sat down at table,' she said, 'when that thing,
0:14:01 > 0:14:04'sitting in your place, got up and shouted,
0:14:04 > 0:14:08" 'So, I smell a bit strong, what? Well, I don't eat cakes.'
0:14:08 > 0:14:11" 'Whereupon it tore off its face and ate it,
0:14:11 > 0:14:14" 'and, with one great bound, disappeared through the window.' "
0:14:17 > 0:14:20She said it was torture.
0:14:22 > 0:14:26That was maybe the last time Leonora ever did as she was told.
0:14:29 > 0:14:31CRUNCHING AND CHATTER OF DINERS
0:14:48 > 0:14:51Her family have been seen as this upper-class family,
0:14:51 > 0:14:54but they were not an upper-class family.
0:14:54 > 0:14:56They were a family who didn't fit in.
0:15:01 > 0:15:04I think that's key to understanding Leonora.
0:15:07 > 0:15:10Leonora, from her earliest times, didn't fit in.
0:15:23 > 0:15:27The thing about Harold Carrington was that he came from a family
0:15:27 > 0:15:29where women would have known their place.
0:15:29 > 0:15:31Men were the workers, they went out,
0:15:31 > 0:15:33women stayed at home and did as they were told.
0:15:33 > 0:15:36He wasn't used to anybody answering him back,
0:15:36 > 0:15:39and the one person who did answer him back was the person he least
0:15:39 > 0:15:41would have expected - his only daughter.
0:15:41 > 0:15:44And I think that was a big shock for Harold.
0:15:44 > 0:15:47And I think that led to the very big clash between them.
0:15:49 > 0:15:53She used to say that her father was very stern and very severe,
0:15:53 > 0:15:57but I think she cared very much about her father.
0:15:57 > 0:16:02She said that her father was very narrow-minded and very difficult,
0:16:02 > 0:16:07but she spoke more about her father than about her mother.
0:16:07 > 0:16:09There were no marriage proposals, unsurprisingly.
0:16:09 > 0:16:12And I think her parents were probably at a bit of a loose end as
0:16:12 > 0:16:14to what to do with her next,
0:16:14 > 0:16:18and I think that she came up with this idea of going to art school.
0:16:21 > 0:16:26I was planning of going to London to study painting.
0:16:28 > 0:16:29I already knew that.
0:16:37 > 0:16:40For Leonora, this was the beginning of freedom for her.
0:16:42 > 0:16:44She was at art school,
0:16:44 > 0:16:47and she was mixing with a different sort of person.
0:16:52 > 0:16:55She found that she was an artist.
0:16:57 > 0:17:00She found that she wanted to study art.
0:17:03 > 0:17:06And she found Surrealism,
0:17:06 > 0:17:12and Surrealism was something that surprised her,
0:17:12 > 0:17:15because it was so familiar.
0:17:20 > 0:17:24My mother gave me Herbert Read's book on Surrealism,
0:17:24 > 0:17:27and I had an affinity with it.
0:17:30 > 0:17:31She opened that book,
0:17:31 > 0:17:34and she connected with Surrealism, and in particular
0:17:34 > 0:17:38she connected with the pictures she saw in there
0:17:38 > 0:17:40by an artist called Max Ernst.
0:17:44 > 0:17:46Deux Enfants Sont Menacs Par Un Rossignol.
0:17:49 > 0:17:52Two Children Being Frightened Of...
0:17:52 > 0:17:55Rossignol is for the nightingale, isn't it?
0:17:59 > 0:18:02I felt, "Ah, yes, this is familiar.
0:18:02 > 0:18:04"I know what this is about."
0:18:05 > 0:18:09A kind of world which would move between worlds.
0:18:09 > 0:18:13The world of our dreaming and imagination.
0:18:19 > 0:18:23It was a seismic moment in the art world.
0:18:29 > 0:18:31The public of Britain was just struggling to
0:18:31 > 0:18:32cope with the Post-Impressionists,
0:18:32 > 0:18:36and suddenly here were all these people who were regarded as madmen.
0:18:37 > 0:18:41Critics recommended they should be locked up, to protect the public.
0:18:46 > 0:18:48My mother saw these paintings, and
0:18:48 > 0:18:50she was really fascinated with them,
0:18:50 > 0:18:54and she confessed to me, "I want to be there...
0:18:57 > 0:19:00"I want to be recognised in this group."
0:19:25 > 0:19:27One evening,
0:19:27 > 0:19:32she's invited for dinner to the home of a friend of hers from art school,
0:19:32 > 0:19:36and they had invited an artist who was in London because he had a show
0:19:36 > 0:19:38on at the time, and that was Max Ernst.
0:19:40 > 0:19:44They both met, and something really must have clicked very significantly
0:19:44 > 0:19:46for her.
0:19:49 > 0:19:51I knew his work and admired it.
0:19:51 > 0:19:55I thought he was a very extraordinary person.
0:19:57 > 0:19:59He was very intelligent.
0:19:59 > 0:20:00He was also very attractive.
0:20:05 > 0:20:08She said it didn't take very long before they were lovers.
0:20:18 > 0:20:21Her father, having heard about this relationship,
0:20:21 > 0:20:24and obviously incandescent at the turn of events,
0:20:24 > 0:20:28decided to try and get Max arrested for the content of the show.
0:20:28 > 0:20:31So he called someone at the Metropolitan Police and said that he
0:20:31 > 0:20:34thought they needed to investigate this man, Max Ernst,
0:20:34 > 0:20:36because his images were pornographic.
0:20:41 > 0:20:46Max, at that time, was married, and this did not help things.
0:20:48 > 0:20:50But Max's friends, I think,
0:20:50 > 0:20:53rather liked Leonora,
0:20:53 > 0:20:56and were kind of encouraging and supporting of her.
0:20:59 > 0:21:01And among those friends, of course, were my parents,
0:21:01 > 0:21:04Lee Miller and Roland Penrose, who took to her right from the start.
0:21:06 > 0:21:12Fortunately, Max's friend Roland Penrose got to hear of this threat
0:21:12 > 0:21:17and warned Max to go to Cornwall, where Roland's brother had a house.
0:21:18 > 0:21:20Max and Leonora came down,
0:21:20 > 0:21:23and there was also Man Ray and Ady Fidelin
0:21:23 > 0:21:28and Eileen Agar and Joseph Bard, and Henry Moore showed up.
0:21:28 > 0:21:30And it was just this amazing,
0:21:30 > 0:21:34wonderful 'Surrealism in Cornwall' moment.
0:21:38 > 0:21:40They basically laid low for three or four weeks,
0:21:40 > 0:21:42until the danger had passed.
0:21:43 > 0:21:45Max went to Paris,
0:21:45 > 0:21:49and Leonora went to find her parents, to tell them that she had
0:21:49 > 0:21:51made a decision on her future.
0:21:55 > 0:21:59I suppose it was the culmination of everything he'd had to put up with
0:21:59 > 0:22:05from Leonora. Of all her rebellion over so many years,
0:22:05 > 0:22:09and now she was coming to say that she was going off to live in Paris
0:22:09 > 0:22:12with a married man, a penniless artist.
0:22:12 > 0:22:14He was absolutely furious.
0:22:16 > 0:22:21And he said to her, "Never obscure the threshold of my house again!"
0:22:22 > 0:22:25And that's the last she saw him.
0:22:30 > 0:22:32I just left.
0:22:33 > 0:22:35I just left!
0:22:37 > 0:22:39Paris was very exciting at that time.
0:22:41 > 0:22:43I was in love.
0:22:43 > 0:22:48I was with someone who was also an extremely interesting person.
0:22:49 > 0:22:52I was working and seeing new places.
0:22:55 > 0:22:57I knew it was better than being in a convent.
0:22:59 > 0:23:03Paris must have been a wonderful moment for Leonora,
0:23:03 > 0:23:06like emerging into the sunlight of really what the rest of her life
0:23:06 > 0:23:08would be about.
0:23:15 > 0:23:18It was a very, very, very exciting moment in Paris,
0:23:18 > 0:23:22because the Surrealist movement was at its height.
0:23:24 > 0:23:28When I was with the Surrealists, I didn't have to fit in to anything.
0:23:30 > 0:23:34Well, Surrealism was much more than just an art movement.
0:23:34 > 0:23:36It was a way of life.
0:23:38 > 0:23:42They were trying to live in that world of imagination that Leonora
0:23:42 > 0:23:45was living in since she was a little child.
0:23:45 > 0:23:47So I think she fit in perfectly.
0:23:50 > 0:23:52This was a group of radicals.
0:23:54 > 0:23:56They were against every single institution.
0:23:59 > 0:24:01Society, the government, the Church.
0:24:03 > 0:24:06They wanted to break with every rule.
0:24:07 > 0:24:09It was anti-bourgeois.
0:24:10 > 0:24:13It was anti the very thing that Leonora had just herself
0:24:13 > 0:24:15escaped from.
0:24:15 > 0:24:20So she couldn't have been in a more marvellous and exciting setting than
0:24:20 > 0:24:22she found herself there in Paris.
0:24:24 > 0:24:26Leonora was a now 20-year-old woman,
0:24:26 > 0:24:28and because she was the lover of Max Ernst,
0:24:28 > 0:24:32she was kind of parachuted into the very centre of that circle.
0:24:34 > 0:24:39I saw a lot of the Surrealists, including Breton.
0:24:41 > 0:24:44He had a way of talking... SHE SPEAKS FRENCH
0:24:45 > 0:24:49He seemed pompous, but he wasn't really pompous.
0:24:49 > 0:24:52I'd take the mickey out of him now and again.
0:24:52 > 0:24:54I liked Picasso.
0:24:54 > 0:24:56I also admired him.
0:24:56 > 0:25:01I didn't go overboard, but I thought that he was very talented.
0:25:03 > 0:25:06People like Picasso lived down the road,
0:25:06 > 0:25:10and she said that finally she'd discovered...
0:25:12 > 0:25:16..kin people, kin minds,
0:25:16 > 0:25:18people who thought the way she did.
0:25:20 > 0:25:24I think being around Max showed Leonora, in a way,
0:25:24 > 0:25:27what was possible,
0:25:27 > 0:25:31but of course, being a woman, she had a lot to push against.
0:25:36 > 0:25:39Because, although the Surrealists were these fantastic avant-garde,
0:25:39 > 0:25:41modern, freethinking people,
0:25:41 > 0:25:44they still had a long way to go before they reconstructed their
0:25:44 > 0:25:46ideas about women.
0:25:52 > 0:25:56And for many of them, women were sort of like muses,
0:25:56 > 0:25:59beautiful creatures that were there to give inspiration,
0:25:59 > 0:26:00sex and a jolly time.
0:26:01 > 0:26:04They didn't take them seriously as artists.
0:26:11 > 0:26:14Well, the concept of female
0:26:14 > 0:26:19in the group was the "femme-enfant",
0:26:19 > 0:26:22which is cute, but derogatory.
0:26:22 > 0:26:27And women were not really considered to be contributors
0:26:27 > 0:26:29in terms of art.
0:26:33 > 0:26:38But my mother ignored all that and scoffed, scoffed at it.
0:26:40 > 0:26:44It was very clear that she did not share those beliefs,
0:26:44 > 0:26:46and she was very much a feminist.
0:26:46 > 0:26:48Very much.
0:26:50 > 0:26:51She refused to be a muse.
0:26:51 > 0:26:55She refused to fit into their idea of what she was.
0:26:55 > 0:26:58And of course, she had plenty of experience of refusing to fit in,
0:26:58 > 0:26:59it's what she'd done all her life.
0:26:59 > 0:27:02She wasn't going to fit into the Surrealists' idea of how she should
0:27:02 > 0:27:05behave any more than she had ever fitted into anything else.
0:27:25 > 0:27:31She always had to remind people that she was an artist,
0:27:31 > 0:27:35and that she was a woman, and she had her own ideas about her art,
0:27:35 > 0:27:39and she was not a muse
0:27:39 > 0:27:43for either Max Ernst or for Breton or anybody else.
0:27:45 > 0:27:48Leonora and Max were stayed in Paris for a few months over, I think,
0:27:48 > 0:27:50the winter of 1937-8.
0:27:50 > 0:27:53They then went to live in the south of France,
0:27:53 > 0:27:56in a town called Saint-Martin-d'Ardeche.
0:28:02 > 0:28:06Well, Max, you see, it was almost like a learning process,
0:28:06 > 0:28:10because he knew all sorts of things I'd never heard of,
0:28:10 > 0:28:13so it was a revelation, no?
0:28:14 > 0:28:16And it was a love affair, also.
0:28:21 > 0:28:25I felt that we would be all right if it went on forever.
0:28:28 > 0:28:31She was extremely happy.
0:28:31 > 0:28:35This is, in her own words, her happiest time in her life.
0:28:38 > 0:28:40She told me this,
0:28:40 > 0:28:44and that Max had been the greatest
0:28:44 > 0:28:46love in her life,
0:28:46 > 0:28:49at the exclusion of anybody else.
0:28:57 > 0:29:01They'd had this idyllic year or so in the south of France,
0:29:01 > 0:29:04and then the War crashed into their world and changed everything.
0:29:32 > 0:29:37All of a sudden, the French start rounding up people
0:29:37 > 0:29:40of German extraction, and putting them in prison.
0:29:42 > 0:29:45Max was put by the French in a concentration camp.
0:29:46 > 0:29:48I eventually...
0:29:48 > 0:29:50I eventually went mad.
0:29:52 > 0:29:55My mother was destroyed by this.
0:29:55 > 0:29:57It was too much for her.
0:29:57 > 0:30:01She had a breakdown, and at that precise moment she was visited by a
0:30:01 > 0:30:07friend from England who was obviously very worried by her state,
0:30:07 > 0:30:11and persuaded her to leave Saint-Martin with her in her car,
0:30:11 > 0:30:12and to go with her to Spain.
0:30:15 > 0:30:18She found her in a terrible state.
0:30:18 > 0:30:20She hadn't eaten in days,
0:30:20 > 0:30:24and she was eating roots or something like that from the garden,
0:30:24 > 0:30:28and in a very bad emotional state.
0:30:28 > 0:30:31They put her in a car and took her away.
0:30:32 > 0:30:35"No, no, no! I have to wait for Max!"
0:30:35 > 0:30:38"I'm sorry, I'm sorry but the Germans are coming."
0:30:38 > 0:30:41And they were, like, 13 miles away, or something like that,
0:30:41 > 0:30:43and they just got in the car and left.
0:30:51 > 0:30:54She was completely destroyed.
0:30:54 > 0:31:00So, I think it was my grandfather that decided that it would be best
0:31:00 > 0:31:02to put her in a mental institution.
0:31:05 > 0:31:08Best for whom, I don't know, but that...
0:31:08 > 0:31:11that was a "family decision".
0:31:14 > 0:31:18The solution that was found was that she should be taken to a sanatorium
0:31:18 > 0:31:22for people who had mental illness, in the north of Spain.
0:31:23 > 0:31:25She was tricked into going there, basically.
0:31:25 > 0:31:29She was told that she was going for a day out to the seaside.
0:31:29 > 0:31:31The doctor went with her, she was drugged on the way there,
0:31:31 > 0:31:34and she woke up in this place that she, all her life,
0:31:34 > 0:31:36called "the asylum".
0:31:38 > 0:31:41That was the beginning of the darkest chapter, really,
0:31:41 > 0:31:42in her life.
0:31:52 > 0:31:55"My first awakening to consciousness was painful.
0:31:56 > 0:31:59"I thought myself the victim of an automobile accident.
0:32:03 > 0:32:06"The place was suggestive of a hospital,
0:32:06 > 0:32:09"and I was being watched by a repulsive-looking nurse
0:32:09 > 0:32:11"who looked like an enormous bottle of Lysol.
0:32:12 > 0:32:15"I was in pain, and I realised that my hands and feet
0:32:15 > 0:32:17"were bound by leather straps.
0:32:19 > 0:32:23"I learned later that I had entered the place, fighting like a tigress."
0:32:25 > 0:32:29It was the treatment she received there that was so terrible.
0:32:29 > 0:32:33She was treated by being given a drug called Cardiosol,
0:32:33 > 0:32:35which induced an epileptic fit.
0:32:41 > 0:32:44"I don't know how long I remained bound and naked.
0:32:44 > 0:32:49"Several days and nights lying in my own excrement, urine and sweat,
0:32:49 > 0:32:52"tortured by mosquitoes whose stings made my body hideous.
0:32:54 > 0:32:58"A new era began with the most terrible, blackest day of my life.
0:32:59 > 0:33:02"How can I write this when I'm afraid to think about it?
0:33:02 > 0:33:04"I'm in terrible anguish,
0:33:04 > 0:33:07"yet I cannot continue living alone with such a memory.
0:33:08 > 0:33:11"I know that once I've written it down, I shall be delivered.
0:33:11 > 0:33:15"But shall I be able to express with mere words the horror of that day?
0:33:21 > 0:33:23"A stranger entered my room.
0:33:23 > 0:33:26"He carried in his hand a physician's bag of black leather.
0:33:29 > 0:33:32"Each of them got hold of a portion of my body,
0:33:32 > 0:33:35"and I saw the centre of all their eyes were fixed upon me in a ghastly
0:33:35 > 0:33:40"stare. Don Luis's eyes were tearing my brain apart,
0:33:40 > 0:33:42"and I was sinking down into a well, very far.
0:33:44 > 0:33:47"The bottom of that well was the stopping of my mind for all eternity
0:33:47 > 0:33:49"in the essence of utter anguish.
0:33:51 > 0:33:54"With a convulsion of my vital centre,
0:33:54 > 0:33:57"I came up to the surface so quickly, I had vertigo.
0:33:58 > 0:34:00"When I came to, I was lying naked on the floor.
0:34:02 > 0:34:04"I went back to my bed and tasted despair."
0:34:26 > 0:34:29I think that experience sealed her.
0:34:30 > 0:34:34Sealed her life, the rest of her life, no?
0:34:34 > 0:34:40And the fact that it was in some way an order of her father, no?
0:34:40 > 0:34:48So, you see there, families worked in a very peculiar way, there, and
0:34:48 > 0:34:53I don't think Leonora ever really forgave that.
0:35:02 > 0:35:05I came out...different.
0:35:05 > 0:35:07Much more frightened.
0:35:13 > 0:35:16What it mainly did for me, in a conscious way,
0:35:16 > 0:35:20was to have suddenly become aware that I was both mortal
0:35:20 > 0:35:24and touchable, and I could be destroyed.
0:35:26 > 0:35:28I didn't think so before.
0:35:36 > 0:35:38She was still only in her early 20s.
0:35:40 > 0:35:42She was really completely alone.
0:35:44 > 0:35:47I was frightened, so frightened all the time.
0:35:50 > 0:35:54My family wanted me to go back to England,
0:35:54 > 0:35:56so it was, you know...
0:35:57 > 0:36:00I didn't want to go back then.
0:36:06 > 0:36:10Leonora ended up meeting Renato Leduc.
0:36:12 > 0:36:16Renato must have been a terribly nice man who undoubtedly took a
0:36:16 > 0:36:20great deal of interest in trying to save Leonora,
0:36:20 > 0:36:23because he realised that she was a very special person.
0:36:25 > 0:36:30He married her, to get her a Mexican passport,
0:36:30 > 0:36:31just simply to save her life.
0:36:34 > 0:36:37He actually got me out of Europe, Renato.
0:36:39 > 0:36:41I met him in Madrid.
0:36:41 > 0:36:44He worked in the Mexican Embassy,
0:36:44 > 0:36:48and the whole Mexican Embassy left to come back to Mexico.
0:36:51 > 0:36:56She decided to go to Mexico, and she didn't know a word of Spanish.
0:36:56 > 0:37:00She had no idea how she would live,
0:37:00 > 0:37:04and she went on this great adventure of going to a country she had
0:37:04 > 0:37:07never...she didn't even imagine what it could be like.
0:37:18 > 0:37:23Once you cross the border and you arrive in Mexico,
0:37:23 > 0:37:26you will feel that you are coming to a place that's haunted.
0:37:27 > 0:37:29Spirits, the presence of spirits.
0:37:30 > 0:37:32Whatever spirits are.
0:37:34 > 0:37:36It was like going to the other end of the earth.
0:37:38 > 0:37:43It is very extraordinary, and very...very exotic.
0:37:44 > 0:37:49Sometimes I found it marvellous, sometimes I found it horrifying.
0:37:51 > 0:37:55There's a lot of similarities between the ancient Mexican
0:37:55 > 0:37:59civilisations and the Celtic cultures.
0:38:05 > 0:38:10There's this concept of Surrealism we have, of imagination, freedom,
0:38:10 > 0:38:13magic as a way of life,
0:38:13 > 0:38:15and I think that resonated with her own culture.
0:38:30 > 0:38:33Mexico became a refuge.
0:38:34 > 0:38:38She found it painful
0:38:38 > 0:38:40to leave Europe, and she was always
0:38:40 > 0:38:43nostalgic about Europe.
0:38:43 > 0:38:47But then she made a life in Mexico.
0:38:56 > 0:38:59But Leonora didn't know anybody, clearly, in Mexico City,
0:38:59 > 0:39:02and suddenly found herself all alone there.
0:39:02 > 0:39:05Renato seems like he was probably quite a man's man,
0:39:05 > 0:39:07liked going out to bars, the cantinas,
0:39:07 > 0:39:10and understandably, she wasn't very happy.
0:39:10 > 0:39:12PIANO MUSIC PLAYS
0:39:14 > 0:39:20Renato was a nice man, but he had an attitude
0:39:20 > 0:39:25which was that it didn't matter if I was alone, you know,
0:39:25 > 0:39:28most days of the week, without speaking Spanish...
0:39:30 > 0:39:31..and not knowing anybody.
0:39:34 > 0:39:37I think it was more than just a marriage of convenience,
0:39:37 > 0:39:41but it didn't have the deep roots that a relationship needs, to go
0:39:41 > 0:39:43through many, many years.
0:39:45 > 0:39:47I asked Renato,
0:39:47 > 0:39:51"Why did you separate such an extraordinary woman?" and he said,
0:39:51 > 0:39:54"Because she would talk to the dog more than she did to me."
0:39:57 > 0:40:01Leonora settled into Mexico,
0:40:01 > 0:40:04into a Mexico where a great number of intellectuals
0:40:04 > 0:40:08were coming to Mexico at the time,
0:40:08 > 0:40:11of all nationalities and all races,
0:40:11 > 0:40:15and Leonora undoubtedly found a very interesting life
0:40:15 > 0:40:17in which to live.
0:40:18 > 0:40:21Now, did that make her happy?
0:40:21 > 0:40:23God only knows.
0:40:24 > 0:40:28She made new friends there, and they were, crucially,
0:40:28 > 0:40:32other people like her, who had fled from wartime Europe and who had no
0:40:32 > 0:40:35family, and most of those people,
0:40:35 > 0:40:38who became her closest friends in Mexico City,
0:40:38 > 0:40:41would never see their families again, any of them.
0:40:45 > 0:40:48At one of the parties, she met my father...
0:40:50 > 0:40:53and the way she describes it, she says,
0:40:53 > 0:40:58"I decided this man would be a good father for my children."
0:40:58 > 0:41:00That's how she described him.
0:41:02 > 0:41:04Nothing more, just that.
0:41:06 > 0:41:10Chiki was a Hungarian photographer
0:41:10 > 0:41:14who had fled Hungary and made
0:41:14 > 0:41:17his way to Paris on foot after
0:41:17 > 0:41:20witnessing from the window of his apartment,
0:41:20 > 0:41:23with his mother, a parade of Nazis going by, saying...
0:41:23 > 0:41:27you know, flourishing knives and saying they were after Jewish blood.
0:41:33 > 0:41:37Leonora and Chiki were both people who'd ended up in Mexico from
0:41:37 > 0:41:40war-torn Europe. They were both people who'd left their families
0:41:40 > 0:41:43behind. Chiki's family were mostly dead.
0:41:44 > 0:41:47They were at an exciting moment, in a way, in their lives,
0:41:47 > 0:41:52because they were there in this new country and they were young people,
0:41:52 > 0:41:57and Chiki, unlike Leonora's previous lovers, was a younger man.
0:41:59 > 0:42:02I think she liked Chiki, no? At the beginning.
0:42:02 > 0:42:06He was good-looking, and Chiki was always a very,
0:42:06 > 0:42:09very good man, but he was very shy.
0:42:12 > 0:42:17And so they got together and married after a little while,
0:42:17 > 0:42:21and then my brother appeared, and I appeared.
0:42:27 > 0:42:32I believe motherhood was the most amazing experience she ever had.
0:42:32 > 0:42:37She told me once that having children was, for her, so important,
0:42:37 > 0:42:42because it's the only unconditional love you can have in your life.
0:42:42 > 0:42:45She said, "They are the only ones that will never leave you."
0:42:50 > 0:42:53When she was pregnant, she was scared,
0:42:53 > 0:42:55but she was painting like crazy.
0:43:04 > 0:43:08This creative instinct came to her at the same time of being able to
0:43:08 > 0:43:09create life.
0:43:21 > 0:43:26And I think that gave her a very powerful sense.
0:43:26 > 0:43:29I think her best work did come at the time when she was painting with
0:43:29 > 0:43:31the brush in one hand and the baby in the other.
0:43:55 > 0:43:57She probably adored her kids.
0:43:59 > 0:44:02In fact, I would say, she did love her kids,
0:44:02 > 0:44:04but in Leonora's own way.
0:44:05 > 0:44:09Certainly not in the traditional way that a normal mother would have
0:44:09 > 0:44:11loved her kids.
0:44:12 > 0:44:15I think she was terrified that, if
0:44:15 > 0:44:17she loved them the way her parents
0:44:17 > 0:44:19loved her, they would be as unhappy
0:44:19 > 0:44:22as she had become with her parents.
0:44:24 > 0:44:27AMBIENT MUSIC PLAYS
0:44:46 > 0:44:49She realised, when she had Gaby and Pablo,
0:44:49 > 0:44:52how important this new family was
0:44:52 > 0:44:54going to be to her, because she was
0:44:54 > 0:44:57somebody who'd left her family behind.
0:44:57 > 0:45:00She realised that she was going to have a second chance at family,
0:45:00 > 0:45:03and she was determined that that second chance was going to go a lot
0:45:03 > 0:45:05better than the first chance had gone.
0:45:12 > 0:45:16I don't think she could have loved two children more than my brother
0:45:16 > 0:45:18and myself.
0:45:18 > 0:45:20I don't think that would have been possible.
0:45:22 > 0:45:25And my father was the same, in a different way.
0:45:26 > 0:45:30He was a little more realistic in
0:45:30 > 0:45:33terms of getting us to get through
0:45:33 > 0:45:36school without flunking and things.
0:45:36 > 0:45:41He instilled a little discipline into this marvellous world
0:45:41 > 0:45:43that we were enjoying.
0:45:47 > 0:45:50The boys were very near her.
0:45:50 > 0:45:54The boys were always walking, one on this side, one on this other side,
0:45:54 > 0:45:56and always with her.
0:45:58 > 0:46:00She shut herself in her studio,
0:46:00 > 0:46:02but we used to open the door and come in.
0:46:06 > 0:46:10She would say, "I need to work, so be very quiet.
0:46:10 > 0:46:12"Here's a piece of paper. Draw."
0:46:12 > 0:46:14And that's how I started drawing.
0:46:19 > 0:46:23Sometimes it was dreadfully difficult.
0:46:23 > 0:46:27She was paralysed and desperate,
0:46:27 > 0:46:30that no images came,
0:46:30 > 0:46:32and it was barren,
0:46:32 > 0:46:35and she was extremely depressed sometimes.
0:46:35 > 0:46:38But sometimes it just flowed, like that,
0:46:38 > 0:46:43and she was very excited, and she wouldn't leave the studio, because
0:46:43 > 0:46:45there were so many things coming.
0:46:57 > 0:47:01Leonora was always very reluctant to
0:47:01 > 0:47:04talk about her work, about her art.
0:47:04 > 0:47:07She would never explain what anything meant.
0:47:07 > 0:47:09She just said, "It just came that way."
0:47:14 > 0:47:17She didn't do anything to promote her career.
0:47:17 > 0:47:20She was totally foreign to anything
0:47:20 > 0:47:23resembling public relations.
0:47:23 > 0:47:28She did the work and put it out, you know, in public, and that was it.
0:47:31 > 0:47:34It's difficult for me to put, verbally.
0:47:34 > 0:47:37I leave that to all the people who do the writing.
0:47:40 > 0:47:43It comes with a feeling more than an image.
0:47:43 > 0:47:47It's not that you actually see it.
0:47:47 > 0:47:51There's a kind of sense that it's quite right.
0:47:53 > 0:47:55Let's say, that green was quite right.
0:47:55 > 0:47:59Or that green was, oh, no, no, not quite right.
0:47:59 > 0:48:01Then you don't stop to wonder where that's coming from.
0:48:11 > 0:48:14To be an artist, it was so natural in her, no?
0:48:14 > 0:48:16And to be famous, she didn't like at all.
0:48:16 > 0:48:20She didn't like journalism, she didn't like...
0:48:20 > 0:48:22She hated interviews. She didn't like questions,
0:48:22 > 0:48:25she never even answered them.
0:48:25 > 0:48:30I don't think she was really that much interested in the art market.
0:48:30 > 0:48:34Of course, she wanted to sell the paintings, because she needed money
0:48:34 > 0:48:37to eat and to raise the kids and to feed them,
0:48:37 > 0:48:42but I don't think she was that interested in the public recognition
0:48:42 > 0:48:46of her work. That was part of her life.
0:48:46 > 0:48:49I don't think she could have survived without painting.
0:49:09 > 0:49:13She would use any kind of little room for her painting.
0:49:13 > 0:49:18It was not important to have a studio, like many of the other
0:49:18 > 0:49:21quote-unquote "great artists" had.
0:49:25 > 0:49:28She had a little studio upstairs,
0:49:28 > 0:49:33a very poor little studio with electricity and things that were all
0:49:33 > 0:49:36like this, you know? Cords all the...
0:49:36 > 0:49:38Very... Things... You said, "My goodness!"
0:49:38 > 0:49:41And the rain, it got in.
0:49:41 > 0:49:44And she had a very uncomfortable chair.
0:49:44 > 0:49:48Everything was, sort of, very difficult and uncomfortable,
0:49:48 > 0:49:50and that's where she painted.
0:49:52 > 0:49:54But it was very funny,
0:49:54 > 0:49:58because you saw all these Mexican painters, that weren't 10% as good
0:49:58 > 0:50:02as she could be, that had all these enormous studios,
0:50:02 > 0:50:05horrible white studios full of horrible paintings,
0:50:05 > 0:50:10and she had this, and she was doing all this marvellous painting, no?
0:50:10 > 0:50:12In this little room.
0:50:14 > 0:50:19I think it's in Mexico that she found her real way, artistically
0:50:19 > 0:50:22speaking, because that's where she had, I think,
0:50:22 > 0:50:28enough time to dedicate herself fully to what she was.
0:50:28 > 0:50:29An artist.
0:50:31 > 0:50:33She'd kind of run and run and run and run and run,
0:50:33 > 0:50:35and she got to the end of the line, really.
0:50:35 > 0:50:36There was nowhere else to run to.
0:50:40 > 0:50:43She could have gone back, but she was never going to do that.
0:50:43 > 0:50:45And there was nowhere else to go.
0:50:59 > 0:51:02Did she want to go back to England?
0:51:02 > 0:51:08Well, she was terribly homesick and nostalgic,
0:51:08 > 0:51:12so her relationship to England was always sort of a
0:51:12 > 0:51:14lost home.
0:51:33 > 0:51:36Well, a home is a kind of illusion a lot of us have.
0:51:41 > 0:51:44Being settled doesn't exist, really.
0:51:47 > 0:51:48I need change.
0:51:51 > 0:51:56Because I get sort of suffocated by my own atmosphere...
0:51:57 > 0:51:59or things that become too familiar.
0:52:04 > 0:52:07She never quite
0:52:07 > 0:52:10fitted anywhere.
0:52:10 > 0:52:13Not England, not Mexico.
0:52:13 > 0:52:18I don't think she was comfortable anywhere, that's the truth,
0:52:18 > 0:52:22and if there was one country where my mother was very comfortable,
0:52:22 > 0:52:25was art. Hmm?
0:52:25 > 0:52:27That was her country.
0:52:56 > 0:53:02Even though she may have never accepted this, I told her myself -
0:53:02 > 0:53:08"Mexico has received you with open arms,
0:53:08 > 0:53:11which would never have happened in Europe.
0:53:11 > 0:53:13Never.
0:53:15 > 0:53:20Well, Leonora is considered one of the greatest Mexican painters.
0:53:20 > 0:53:23She's always been considered a Mexican artist.
0:53:26 > 0:53:31Even though she was born in England, for us, she is our artist.
0:53:31 > 0:53:36She belongs to Mexico, and she has always been recognised here.
0:53:36 > 0:53:38She's always had a very good name.
0:53:42 > 0:53:47Leonora's work is so unique, and I think that's a legacy that,
0:53:47 > 0:53:51even though she was surrounded by all these big shots of Surrealism,
0:53:51 > 0:53:57she was able to look inside of her and create something that was really
0:53:57 > 0:53:59unique and visionary.
0:54:04 > 0:54:09Being tucked away in Mexico City certainly did not help her achieve
0:54:09 > 0:54:13recognition in the way that she could have done, should have done,
0:54:13 > 0:54:16but Leonora certainly did not achieve the recognition in this
0:54:16 > 0:54:19country that she so richly deserved.
0:54:21 > 0:54:25Leonora, as an artist, may still be in her infancy in terms of how
0:54:25 > 0:54:28well-known she will one day be,
0:54:28 > 0:54:31and I do think that Leonora's moment is still ahead,
0:54:31 > 0:54:34in terms of her being really well-known and acknowledged as an
0:54:34 > 0:54:37artist, because so many of her themes were ahead of their time,
0:54:37 > 0:54:39and are probably still ahead.
0:54:39 > 0:54:42I think she was ahead of all of us.
0:54:42 > 0:54:46She was so extraordinary, so...
0:54:46 > 0:54:49so, anyone who's ahead of you, you always...
0:54:49 > 0:54:52they are always there.
0:54:52 > 0:54:55The idea of saying that, as you can't explain or you can't
0:54:55 > 0:54:58understand, you say things that are
0:54:58 > 0:55:03under...under the personality of that person, no?
0:55:03 > 0:55:05And Leonora was like that.
0:55:05 > 0:55:09She walked in another world, she lived in another world, no?
0:55:10 > 0:55:12She was a little bit like...
0:55:14 > 0:55:19..like a genius, but also like a monk of the Middle Ages,
0:55:19 > 0:55:23or like someone that doesn't exist any more.
0:55:24 > 0:55:27Lots of things died when she died.
0:55:41 > 0:55:44A lot of my journeys were running away.
0:55:45 > 0:55:50But in old age, I feel that I'm beginning a journey in a way.
0:55:52 > 0:55:54Death is of course inevitable.
0:55:55 > 0:55:58Somehow I have to go with it a bit,
0:55:58 > 0:56:02as a way of discovering or uncovering,
0:56:02 > 0:56:05because, really, we know nothing about death.
0:56:06 > 0:56:08Nothing.
0:56:10 > 0:56:13Yes, well, her son Gaby has said
0:56:13 > 0:56:18that almost her final words before she died was, she looked at the
0:56:18 > 0:56:21wall, and he said, "What are you looking at?"
0:56:21 > 0:56:23And she said, "At the blackbirds.
0:56:23 > 0:56:27"The wall is filled with wonderful blackbirds."
0:56:28 > 0:56:30You know, which seemed...
0:56:30 > 0:56:34a marvellous thing to see at the very end for her.
0:56:34 > 0:56:36Yes, we were impressed, because it's
0:56:36 > 0:56:39like the blackbirds coming for her.
0:56:41 > 0:56:45To take her to the fantastic world she was living in already.
0:56:46 > 0:56:49BIRDSONG
0:56:52 > 0:56:55GENTLE MUSIC PLAYS
0:57:17 > 0:57:20PIANO PLAYS GENTLY