Leonora Carrington’s New York Year

​New York
1941–1942

If Peggy Guggenheim had believed that leaving Lisbon would be a means of separating Max Ernst from Leonora Carrington, she realized as soon as they reached New York that it hadn’t worked. On their very first evening, in the restaurant where they had supper (accompanied by a detective, since Max was German and still had to be processed on Ellis Island), the first person they saw was Catherine Yarrow, the friend with whom Leonora had left Saint-Martin. Max became very upset. He knew Catherine had been instrumental in Leonora’s decision to travel to Spain, and the shock he had felt on returning to Les Alliberts after his release and finding her gone was still fresh in his memory. He refused to shake hands with Catherine, and there was “almost… a dreadful scene.”

Peggy quickly made contact with André Breton, whom she had helped financially to leave Europe with his wife Jacqueline Lamba and their daughter, Aube. Breton, she recalled in her memoir, wanted to hear all about Max and our life in Lisbon and what had gone on between Leonora and Max. The report had gone around New York that Max would not leave Leonora in Lisbon, and that was why we had remained there so long. Breton did not gather that I was in love with Max. We talked a lot about Leonora and Max, and Breton confirmed my opinion that she was the only woman Max had ever loved.

Leonora and arrived in New York by sea a few days later. They moved into an apartment on West 73rd Street provided for them by the Mexican government, for whom Renato would continue to work (Leonora seems never to have been entirely clear about what he did, was there, and was there. Everybody was there. And Duchamp was living at the time at Max and Peggy’s. They had a mansion on Sutton Place.” Peggy’s apartment was a hub for the group of exiles and there were many gatherings, parties and soirees, as well as a series of photoshoots of the Parisian artistic superstars reconvened in their New York setting. There had been a subtle but important shift in Leonora’s status since the Paris days. Then, she had been included in the circle on account of her love affair with Max. Now she was part of the group on her own terms, recognized as the increasingly proficient artist she was becoming.