Last year was a big one for the market of Surrealist master Leonora Carrington, whose colorful life and works are finally getting the star billing and recognition they deserve. In May, her 1945 painting Les Distractions de Dagobert was the star of a Sotheby’s modern art evening sale, setting a new record of $28.5 million for the British artist, after a fierce 10-minute bidding war. Her previous high was just $3.3 million, a figure set two years ago, also at Sotheby’s.

This year is also starting out on a strong note for Carrington. On January 21, Gallery Wendi Norris in San Francisco will open “Leonora Carrington: Mythopoesis,” the gallery’s fifth Carrington exhibition. It will be the first solo show of her work in San Francisco in a decade.

Leonora Carrington, Les Distractions de Dagobert (1945). Courtesy Sotheby’s.

The exhibition will examine the origin stories and literary influences that fueled Carrington’s creativity and subversive sensibility, from gothic fairy tales to Celtic legends. Its title borrows the ancient Greek word for “the making of myths.” The show will explore how the artist transformed and translated various forms of storytelling across a range of mediums.

The gallery will feature roughly 15 works that the artist created between 1940 and 1987, highlighting the underexplored range of media in which Carrington worked. In addition to paintings and drawings, the exhibition will include a tapestry, one of her largest painted sculptures, and a toy carriage, revealing the depth and breadth of her practice.

“Carrington’s work continues to surprise and delight even the most seasoned scholars and collectors,” Melanie Cameron, senior director at Gallery Wendi Norris, said. “With ‘Mythopoesis,’ we are honored to present a side of Carrington that is both familiar and refreshing.”

Leonora Carrington, La Grande Dame (The Cat Woman), 1951, at Sotheby’s New York. Photo: Eileen Kinsella

Since the $28.5 million May record, Carrington has achieved two more strong auction results, according to the Artnet Price Database. In November, her trippy cat-head sculpture, La Grande Dame (The Cat Woman), 1951, sold at Sotheby’s New York for $11.4 million. The house also sold another Carrington painting, Temple of the Word (1954), for $4.6 million.

Carrington, who died in 2011, at 94, invented a fantastical universe populated by a motley cast of characters: “chimerical ghoulies, historical figures, anthropomorphic oddities, primordial gods and goddesses, feisty crones, and mythical creatures,” as Gallery Wendi Norris puts in its press release. Her beings engage in rituals and perform miniaturized dramas within each work.

“Leonora Carrington: Mythopoesis” opens at Gallery Wendi Norris in San Francisco on Tuesday, January 21, and runs through Saturday, March 15.