The Tarot of Leonora Carrington

Inigo

As well as unlocking the secrets to every reader’s fate (if you believe in that sort of thing), the book offers an intriguing new insight into one of the most fascinating mindsgton once said, “is a chameleon.” Conventional exploration being rather limited, the artist’s cards—blank-faced Justice against indigo; Moon, flanked by howling dogs—warrant dropping anchor and staying awhile. Afterwards, for a classic Carrington snack, snip a lock of hair from your bedmate while they sleep and whisk it into an omelette. Stuff of legend.

Daily Telegraph

Robert Weinberg

For Carrington and the surrealists two world wars were proof enough that the world did not operate with anything resembling rationality. Amidst the turbulence of today, perhaps the revival of interest in her and her tarot deck was always on the cards.

Elephant

Louise Benson

[A] revelation, showcasing Carrington’s distinctive approach and style in a series of iconic images that shimmer with gold and silver leaf.

Guardian

Alice Fisher

Leonora Carrington’s life was full of twists and turns. She was a celebrated surrealist artist, Max Ernst’s lover and mental-asylum inmate in the 1930s, and then a women’s rights campaigner in 1970s Mexico. With so much drama in her life, it’s not surprising she looked for belief systems. The tarot fascinated her so much she created her own surrealist pack. They lay undiscovered in her archive until a 2018 retrospective in Mexico City and are now gathered in [this] new book

Art & Object

Claire Voon

Another portal into the artist’s enigmatic imagination... For Carrington, tarot was more than a divination tool; it was a stimulus to the unconscious mind, “a guide for the exploration of the psyche,” as Aberth and Arcq write. She was a tireless conjurer of subliminal domains. In envisioning tarot, she only continued to transcend the bounds of sense.

Financial Times

Baya Simons

It was only in 2017 that [Carrington’s] hand painted deck of tarot cards was unearthed from her archive. Now a new book reveals the creation of her intricate, surrealistic version of the Major Arcana—the tarot’s 22 trump cards depicting the grandest themes and ideas of life, among them love, power and death.

Cent Magazine

Weronika Kusmider

The Tarot of Leonora Carrington shows how she connected her unconscious creative persona with what has been encompassed into multiple tarot books she used as a guide. Designs of the cards and colours of their background give us an inside into Leonora’s head and her understanding of each card. Her cards allow us to dig deeper into ourselves, discover things we never knew about our consciousness.

Hyperallergic

Cassie Packard

Carrington’s tarot cards are populated by her characteristically fey figures, often androgynes or human-animal hybrids, set against backdrops in deep, full hues: cobalt, lapis, mulberry, gold. She drew upon archetypal decks including gilded examples from 15th century Italy, the Tarot of Marseilles beloved by many Surrealists, and the popular Rider-Waite deck from 1909. [...] The book’s analysis of drawings and paintings spanning Carrington’s career elucidates that tarot iconography was likewise an animating force in her artwork.

Inigo

As well as unlocking the secrets to every reader’s fate (if you believe in that sort of thing), the book offers an intriguing new insight into one of the most fascinating minds of the 20th century. The in-depth essay that accompanies the images, by Carrington experts Susan Aberth and Tere Arcq, sees Carrington’s Tarot as a medium (the word here is particularly appropriate) through which to interpret the complex underlying themes of her wider canon of work. But it’s also, quite simply, a beautiful object, its images joyously revelling in their combinations of bright colour, subtle line-drawn textures and shining metallic surfaces. All in all, it’s enough to make you wonder whether, perhaps, we could all do with just a touch more gold leaf in our lives.

Tatler

Francesca Carington

Immerse yourself in myths ancient and modern, tantalising Tarot, Jungian archetypes, a history of magic, a dictionary of symbols or maybe just surreal things – let Leonora Carrington be your guiding star when it comes to all things mystical.

All Arts/WNET

Britt Stigler

A glimpse into new realms...

La Jornada

Germaine Gómez Haro

Leonora Carrington's pictorial universe is populated by intertwined references of an overflowing imagination...

Artforum

Chloe Wyma

Brings reflections on the artist’s esoteric practice together with a lavish facsimile of Carrington’s private illustrated tarot deck, unearthed by the authors while researching their 2018 exhibition, “Leonora Carrington: Magical Tales,” at the Museo de Arte Moderno in Mexico City.

Paris Review

Rhian Sasseen

Reproduces [Leonora Carrington’s] newly discovered illustration of the Major Arcana. The tarot is a chameleon, yes, but as Carrington’s vision of it shows, so, too, is it a chance for both the imposition and the abandonment of narrative; in Carrington’s hands, as with her fiction, there is an embrace of the illogical, the fictive, the dream.

Hyperallergic

AX Mina

While Carrington has received increased attention in recent years, this book examines her work explicitly through the lens of the tarot, making it essential reading for students of both Surrealism and divination alike.