Untitled, from VVV Portfolio

Atelier 17|VVV, New York|Leonora Carrington

1942 (published 1943) · Etching · Drawings and Prints

This untitled print, as well as many of her works, includes images of various animals, such as dogs, cats, horses, and hybrid creatures, thus speaking to the strong connection she felt with animals since the time she was a young girl. As with many of her works, animals would have different meanings and associations; while some served as representations of women (including the artist herself), others make reference to medieval bestiaries or fantastical creatures from works by artists such as Bosch. Throughout her oeuvre, however, Carrington attempted to dismantle divisions between animals and human and stress that humans not only inhabit the same spaces as animals, but are, in fact, animals. Featured in this print is a cryptic composition involving text, mathematical formulae, animals, and diagonal lines that serve to both connect and confine. The images have several associations, such as that of the dog tied to the tree, which is frequently read as an allegorical self-portrait. Carrington also included short passages such as the texts, produced upside down, that reads “To Study the Numbers/Seventy Nine/The Dogs of the Sleeper.”

Artist

Atelier 17|VVV, New York|Leonora Carrington

Date

1942 (published 1943)

Medium

Etching

Department

Drawings and Prints

Credit line

Purchase, Bertha and Isaac Liberman Foundation Gift, 2019