Episode
Leonora Carrington - The Magical World of the Maya | pt. 1
- Published
- Apr 16, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 4830
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- http://linktr.ee/artslicepod
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Summary
WEEE’’’RREEE BAAACCCKKKK!!!! VIDEO VERSION HERE: https://youtu.be/4Rx_f27XNlg Today we are revisiting our fav Hyena Queen LEONORA CARRINGTON: this time covering her epic mural “The Magical World of the Maya” or “El mundo mágico de los mayas” from casein, tempera on panel 1963-64. This 14ft x 7ft beaut of a work features a slice of Mayan life including the sky, earth and underworld all filled with mysterious scenes, cosmological events, and mythical creatures - brought to us through Leonora’s lens using those tiny brushmarks and washy layers. We first covered her work, the small 1945 painting “The House Opposite” in our Las Tres Witches episodes featuring her witchy besties Surrealist artists Remedios Varo and Kati Horna and we left off as she settled into her new home in Mexico City. Through Kati Horna, LC would meet and fall in love with and marries also newly immigrated Hungarian photographer and concentration camp survivor, Emerico “Chiki” Weisz. She captures this new era in her 1944 painting “Chiki Your Country”, an autobiographical, fantastical and wonderfully weird landscape - a work that foreshadows her approach to the Mayan mural. Fast forward 20 yearish later: it’s 1963, Surrealism has faded and LC is part of a new generation of artists called the Breakaway Generation (Generación de la Ruptura) for breaking away from Muralism. And she landed a commission to paint “The Magical World of the Maya” for the grand opening of the National Museum of Anthropology in Chapultepec Park. To prepare, LC found herself embarking on a wild ride (literally and figuratively) to meet with the Maya of Chiapas including the Tzoztil, Teztil and Lacandon. Her guide to Chiapas would be the badass Swiss, machete-wielding, combat boot-wearing land activist and indigenous advocate Gertru…