Newly discovered Carrington painting to debut at Freud Museum

A rediscovered painting by Surrealist Leonora Carrington, created during her 1940 hospitalization at the Morales sanatorium in Santander, Spain, will be exhibited for the first time at London's Freud Museum. The work, titled Villa Pilar, joins the exhibition Leonora Carrington: The Symptomatic Surreal, which opened in March and now runs until 10 August. Villa Pilar was painted while Carrington was a patient after a psychological breakdown following the arrest of her partner, Max Ernst, by the Nazis. Encouraged by her psychiatrist Dr. Luis Morales, Carrington sketched obsessively, depicting the hospital as an underworld with hybrid creatures. During her six-month stay, she also made a companion piece, Down Below, which shares the title of her 1944 memoir. Carrington gave Villa Pilar to Dr. Morales upon leaving. The painting remained with the Morales family until now. Biographer Joanna Moorhead discusses the work in her book Surreal Spaces (2023), noting that the title refers to a section of the sanatorium, as does Down Below. Late in life, Dr. Morales came to believe Carrington had not been ill. The exhibition will travel to Faro Santander in September 2026, where both Villa Pilar and Down Below will be shown together.