Carrington, Leonora & Weisz, Pablo [Illus.]; Holt, Rochelle [Trans.]; ~ The Oval Lady : Six Surreal Stories

The First USA Printing : Capra Press, Santa Barbara : 1975

The First USA Printing : Capra Press, Santa Barbara : 1975. Large slim 8vo., lime green card wraps with front panel illustration ‘The Ancestor’ by Leonora Carrington; the other six illustrations by Pablo Weisz; red textured end-leaves; THE BOOK a Very Good copy with some light creasing and marks; some bleeding of red onto the upper edge; previous owner’s name and date to title; covers creased and lightly marked at edges with some rubbing to the backstrip; scarce. The book is protected in a removable Mylar archival cover. First edition in English by the Capra Press, with illustrations by Pablo Weisz. All stories aside from White Rabbits are here translated by Rochelle Holt. Many of the stories had originally been published in France by La Dame Ovale. Stories of the ‘mysterious, hieroglyphic and occult’ by Leonora Carrington, the English-born Mexican artist who lived most of her adult life in Mexico city, and was an important figure in the Surrealist movement of the 1930s (sometimes credited for ‘feminising surrealism’. She was also a founding member of the Women's Liberation Movement in Mexico during the 1970s. André Breton wrote of her work: “The act of reading a Carrington parable is one which leads us to the question of why the fruit salesman incubates eggs, what it means to water one’s deceased wife, what the significance is of a corpse that is not entirely dead, and how we are to interpret the language of cypresses.” The book is illustrated by the artist’s son Pablo, who grew up with the characters his mother, and Hungarian photographer father (Emeric Weisz) surrounded themselves with; Breton, Frida Kahlo, and Octavia Paz, to name just a few. Influenced by these important figures, his first art exhibition was held when he was just 14 years old, and by 24 he had a major exhibit of drawings and watercolours at the Israeli-Mexican Cultural Institute. “My paintings to the subconscious” he wrote, “but only those who allow this fully understand them”. There was also a signed limited casebound edition. Scarce

BINDING: Wraps
CONDITION: Very Good