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Artist or Maker: Leonora Carrington (English B. 1917)

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Description: Ulu's Pants
signed 'LEONORA CARRINGTON' (lower left), titled and signed again 'ULU'S PANTS, LEONORA CARRINGTON' (on the reverse)
oil and tempera on panel
21 1/2 x 36 in. (54.5 x 91.5 cm.)
Painted in 1952.

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Provenance: Galería de Arte Mexicano, Mexico City.
Maureen Moorhead Carrington collection, England.
Patrick Carrington collection, England.
Private collection, Isle of Man.
Anon. Sale, Christie's, New York, Latin American Sale (Part I), 1 June 2000, lot 29 (illustrated in color).
Private collection, Mexico City.

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Exhibited: Paris, Galerie Pierre, Leonora Carrington, 1952.
London, Serpentine Gallery, Leonora Carrington: Paintings, drawing and sculptures 1940-1990, December - January 1992.
Tokyo, Bunkamura Museum of Art, Women Surrealists in Mexico, July - September 2003. This exhibition later traveled to Osaka, Suntory Museum, September - October 2003; Nagoya, Nagoya City Art Museum, November - December 2003; Kochi, The Museum of Art, January - February 2004.

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Published: W. Chadwick, Leonora Carrington: La Realidad de la Imaginación, Ediciones Era, Mexico City, 1994, p. 33, no. 30 (illustrated in color).
L. Andrade, Leonora Carrington, historia en dos tiempos, Ediciones Corunda, Mexico City, 1998 (illustrated in color).
Exhibition catalogue, Women Surrealists in Mexico, Tokyo, Bunkamura Museum of Art, et al., 2003, p. 127, no. 65 (illustrated in color).

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Notes: Exoporia, or ghost moths, make pilgrimages to The Garden of the Genie (Ulu's Pants) where a benevolent Egyptian sphinx guards the entrance to the cave that contains the primeval egg created by Khnum. Khnum was potter god of the island of Elephantine, responsible for fashioning children and their souls on his potter's wheel and placing them inside their mother's wombs. Moreover, the sphinx also impedes the entrance to the labyrinth. The protected egg represents the future. Returning to the cave means returning to a time when we were protected from the demands of being born. As adults, some settle for searching for ancient places of worship. Ultimately, the desire is maternal, therefore nocturnal. Yearning can become a way to commune with the secret of our origins. The labyrinth, however, means awareness because once we enter it, we are moving, seeking, evolving.

Salomon Grimberg, Dallas, Texas, 2000