Leonora Carrington at Lamb Gallery

Handed down to timelessness are five most enchanting hats by Leonora Carrington, meticulously sketched in small brushstroke, with gouache on paper. Each looking about to come alive as though confining magic dust, or keeper of some kind of esoteric knowledge. They are colourful, laced with symbolism and feminine imagery, individually ornate with animal figures and potent elements of nature. Quite possibly a dialogue with archetypal figures or sprouts of active imagination; there is not a dull moment for the eye. They are, on top of that, charmingly framed, bearing delightful French titles. Initially commissioned as a set of fashion designs to produce a set of otherworldly hats in Paris with collaborator friend Leonor Fini, the show ultimately never came about.

Carrington was into magical realism and alchemy. She studied the kabbalah, and post-classic Mayan mystical writings. She was an artist and a writer, reflected much on her own identity, focussing intensely on teasing out interpretation rather than theorising subject-matter. Her entire lifework was driven on instinct. She was a contemporary of Edgar Allan Poe, André Breton, Max Ernst, etc. Although her legacy is at present affiliated with the Surrealist movement in Art History—she exhibited with them and did frequent them closely for some of her life—I believe she never ascribed herself a surrealist. Consciously moving away from characterisation, she was resolutely autonomous with the steering of her life.