Faro Santander, a new art center in Santander, Spain, will present "Leonora Carrington: el surrealismo sintomático" starting September 8, 2026. The exhibition is the first to focus exclusively on the artwork Carrington produced during her 1940–1941 hospitalization at Dr. Morales's sanatorium. It unveils a previously unknown oil painting, "Villa Pilar," which Carrington gave to her physician upon leaving and which has remained in the Morales family for decades. The show also brings together drawings from her sketchbooks, many scattered across collections, and pairs "Villa Pilar" with the emblematic canvas "Down Below" for the first time in the city where both were created.
The exhibition matters because it sheds new light on a pivotal yet underexplored period in Carrington's career—her traumatic flight from Nazi-occupied France and subsequent institutionalization. The discovery of "Villa Pilar" and the reunion of these works in Santander deepen understanding of how her surrealist vision emerged from extreme psychological distress. Co-organized with the Freud Museum in London, the show positions Carrington's sanatorium output as a crucial autobiographical and artistic testament, offering fresh insight into the relationship between trauma, creativity, and surrealism.