Rosemary Sullivan
This is a photograph of P. K. and Leonora Carrington (with her grandson) at an exhibition of Leonora's work at the Inez Amor gallery in Mexico City in 1998. The Guadalajara Book Fair had featured Canada that year and the Canadian Embassy orchestrated P. K.'s return to Mexico after thirty-four years. P. K., Linda Spalding, and I flew to Mexico City specifically to see Leonora. P. K. was anxious. The two friends had been so close that Leonora said she would never forgive P. K. if she left Mexico in 1964, which, of course, she did. I think there were few artists P. K. respected more than Leonora Carrington, but the feeling was mutual. When I had met Leonora on my own three years previously she had spoken of P. K. with her usual humour: “Pat had a wonderful eye, a very textured verbal sense. She had exquisite taste. Once I invited a Hindu gentleman for dinner. He insisted on cooking and made this great pile of rice. It was awful. Pat said it was like congealed blood. Nothing more needed to be said.” If anyone is curious, I have written about their friendship in an article in Brick called “Three Travellers in Mexico.”
