The Tarot of Leonora Carrington

OPEN TO THE PUBLIC | This talk will focus on the discovery of Leonora Carrington’s Major Arcana tarot paintings in 2017 and the subsequent research into its impact on her entire body of work, both visual and literary. Dr. Aberth will outline how the artist merged her interest in alchemy, the Kabbalah, and other esoteric systems with the tarot to create a deck that she considered a tool in aiding the achievement of higher consciousness. The deck is meant to promote a rethinking of the hierarchies surrounding gender and the natural world and was her hope for a future world freed from patriarchy.

Dr. Susan Aberth is the Edith C. Blum Professor of Art History at Bard College, New York, where she specializes in Latin American Art and Surrealism. Her publications include The Tarot of Leonora Carrington, co-authored with Mexican curator Tere Arcq, and Leonora Carrington: Surrealism, Alchemy and Art. She has contributed to the publications Witchcraft; Not Without My Ghosts; Agnes Pelton: Desert Transcendentalist; Surrealism, Occultism and Politics: In Search of the Marvelous; and Leonora Carrington and the International Avant-Garde, among others.