Jan. 29, 2025
Dora Carrington was an artist loosely affiliated with the Bloomsbury Group and noted for her unconventional lifestyle. Despite a short career, her work had a great impact and a retrospective at the Pallant House Gallery in Chichester brings together some of her major works.
I was a bit confused at the start of the show, as I had got my Carrington’s wrong! I’d been thinking this was a show about Leonora Carrington who was active later, initially in circles with Max Ernst, and later on in her own right in Mexico City. I will have to wait for a retrospective of her work another time.
Dora Carrington was born in 1893 and displayed a talent for drawing while at Bedford High School. This gained her access to the Slade school of fine art, and there she mixed in artistic circles. Later she met Lytton Strachey, a key member of the Bloomsbury group. Later still she met and married Ralph Partridge, they moved in with Strachey and formed what might these days be known as a ’throuple’. There were quite a number of Bohemian permutations within their relationships, which is described in the gallery annotations without any sensationalism. It made for an interesting contrast to the prurient English approach to sex and sexuality almost half a century later explored in Summer 1954, perhaps proof that privacy can be bought.
As Dora neither signed nor exhibited her works in her lifetime, the exhibition is somewhat scant of pieces by her. In places, reproductions are relied upon, which unfortunately only serve to highlight the importance of seeing the genuine articles. As is usual with Pallant shows though, there are plenty of thought-provoking pieces by other artists from her circle shown alongside.
In conclusion, this was an interesting, if short, exhibition about an artist I had not heard of. It’s definitely worth it if you also have time to visit Pallant’s concurrent exhibitions, which I’ll review in a future post.