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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Lifestyle
Nadia Khomami Arts and culture correspondent

Leonora Carrington work painted during psychiatric confinement to go on show for first time

A surreal painting of mythical creatures, including a horned centaur and leopard-spotted figures in a forest setting
Leonora Carrington’s Villa Pilar has remained in her psychiatrist’s family for decades. Photograph: Image courtesy of Faro Santander ©2026 Estate of Leonora Carrington ARS, NY and DACS, London

A recently discovered painting by the surrealist artist Leonora Carrington, made during her confinement in a Spanish psychiatric hospital during the second world war, will go on public display for the first time in London this summer.

Known as Villa Pilar, the work was painted in 1940 while Carrington was a patient at sanatorium Morales in Santander, after fleeing Nazi-occupied France after the arrest of her partner, the German artist Max Ernst.

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