A Rare Otherworldly Sculpture by Surrealist Artist Leonora Carrington Is Going to AuctionThe 1951 artwork, La Grande Dame (The Cat Woman), stands over six feet tall and features paintings of hybrid creatures and lush dreamscapesLa Grande Dame (The Cat Woman)by Leonora Carrington on display at Sotheby's in New York City John Lamparski / Getty ImagesAs Surrealism celebrates its100th birthday, a rare sculpture by renowned Surrealist Leonora Carrington is going up for auction.On November 18, Sothebys will sellLa Grande Dame (The Cat Woman), which the British-Mexican artist created in 1951. The piece is expected to sell for between $5 million and $7 million.The otherworldly sculpture is made of carved and polychrome wood, which Carrington painted with depictions of hybrid creatures and lush dreamscapes that evoke a lasting sense of awe, per Sothebys. At more than six feet tall, La Grande Dame is a poised, puzzling figure with elongated features and an indecipherable expression spread across its spade-shaped head, asArtnets Richard Whiddington writes. The piece is more than six feet tall. Sotheby'sExperts have raised concerns about the authenticity of some of the sculptures attributed to Carrington, according to the Art Newspapers Hannah McGivern. However, La Grande Dame isnt one of them. Sothebys says that Harold Gabriel Weisz Carrington, the artists eldest son and president of the Fundacin Leonora Carrington, has confirmed the works authenticity.Museums, as well as private collectors, are expected to bid on the sculpture. Its being sold by a distinguished private American collection, per Sothebys. The piece was previously owned by Edward James, a British patron of the Surrealist movement. This is the first time its come up for public auction in three decades.This is her greatest sculpture, Julian Dawes, Sothebys senior vice president and head of Impressionist and modern art for the Americas, tellsARTnews Karen K. Ho.Dawes adds that her work is very relevant across the world. Carrington was a British artist working in Mexico using Egyptian and Celtic and pre-Columbian iconography, creating something thats wholly fantastical and original, he says. I wouldnt be surprised if we see a lot of institutional activity.Another piece by Carrington, a 1945 painting called Les Distractions de Dagobert, sold for a record $28.5 million earlier this year. Experts say demand for Carringtons work has surged as the art world has shifted its focus to the often-overlookedwomen of the Surrealist movement. The sculpture isis made of carved and polychrome wood. Sotheby'sBorn to a wealthy family in England in 1917, Carrington was a rebellious child who was expelled from at least two convent schools. When she was 14, her parents sent her to an Italian boarding school, where she took up painting.She later moved to London, then Paris, and began participating in the Surrealist movement in the late 1930s. Carrington relocated to Mexico in 1942, became a naturalized Mexican citizen and spent the rest of her life in the country. Shedied in 2011 at age 94.Carrington was primarily a painter, but she was also a writer and sculptor. Her work often featured goddesses, animals, human-animal hybrids, mythological creatures and otherworldly scenes. However, as with the work of other Surrealists, Carringtons art is difficult to characterizeand she liked it that way.Throughout her life, she refused to explain her work and she disliked any attempt to impose the order of language onto her visuals, wroteArtsys Siobhan Leddy in 2019. In seeing beyond the visible world, beyond the rational or comprehensible, Carrington leaves us only with abstract terms like magic.Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.Filed Under: Art, Artists, Arts, Auctions, Mexico, Painters, Sculpture, Surrealism, Visual Arts, Writers