|
Dora de Houghton Carrington (1893-1932) was the fourth of five children
born to Samuel Carrington and Charlotte Houghton. In 1902 the family moved to
Bedford, where Carrington attended a girls' high school which emphasized
sports, music, and drawing over more mundane subjects. The teachers encouraged
Carrington's drawing and her parents paid for her to attend extra drawing
classes in the afternoons. In 1910 she entered the Slade School of Art in
London. Following the tradition of the co-ed school, Carrington dropped her
first name and was known simply as Carrington. She also started a new fashion
at the school, along with her good friends Dorothy Brett and Barbara Hiles who
attended the Slade at the same time, by cutting her hair into a kind of bowl
cut. It was also at the Slade that she met Mark Gertler, a fellow artist who
would pursue her romantically for several years. |
|
Carrington acquitted herself well at the Slade, winning several prizes
and moving quickly through the courses. She left school in 1914 and returned to
her parents' home to decide on her next step. She enjoyed being in the country
but felt stifled by the lack of intellectual stimulation in general and her
mother in particular. Gertler introduced her to Lady Ottoline Morrell, and thus
into the Bloomsbury group of artists and writers. It was while visiting Morrell
at Garsington Manor in 1915 that Carrington was introduced to Lytton Strachey,
a writer and confirmed homosexual. Gertler, feeling that Strachey could act as
a safe go-between for himself, encouraged their friendship. To his dismay,
Carrington fell inexplicably and deeply in love with Strachey, a love that
would last for the rest of her life and cause her to follow him from life into
death. |
|
In 1917 Carrington's relationship with Gertler ended and when Strachey
rented Mill House, Tidmarsh, she moved in with him. Carrington met Ralph
Partridge, an Oxford friend of her younger brother Noel, in 1918. Partridge
fell in love with Carrington and, accepting that she was still in love with
Strachey and would not give up her platonic relationship or living arrangements
with him, married her in 1921. In 1924 he and Strachey purchased the lease to
Ham Spray House, near Hungerford, and all three lived out their lives
there. |
|
Over the next eight years Carrington divided her time between domestic
chores, caring for Strachey whose health was erratic, and her art work. She
painted on almost any medium she could find including glass, tiles, pub signs,
and the walls of friends' homes; she also made woodcuts for Hogarth Press and
did some leather work. She had two well-known affairs, one with Gerald Brenan,
an army friend of Partridge's, and the other with a sailor, Beakus Penrose. In
1926 Partridge formed an attachment to Frances Marshall, ending his marriage
with Carrington in spirit, if not in law, but maintained his role of manager
for Ham Spray House, visiting most weekends. |
|
In November 1931 Strachey became suddenly and violently ill. Doctors
fluctuated between diagnoses of typhoid fever and ulcerative colitis, but his
condition -- stomach cancer -- was not accurately diagnosed until an autopsy
was performed. Round the clock nurses were hired and various treatments were
tried. In late December he took a turn for the worse and on December 20
Carrington attempted suicide by shutting herself in the garage with the car
running. Partridge rescued her and she recovered enough to spend the last few
days of Strachey's life taking her turn watching over him. On January 21, 1932,
Strachey died. The greatest concern of their friends now became preventing
Carrington from killing herself; arrangements were made to keep her occupied
and attended. In March Carrington was planning for a trip to France and her
friends began to feel less concern, but she also borrowed a gun from a
neighbor, ostensibly to shoot rabbits in her garden. On March 11, 1932, she
shot herself fatally. She was found before she died and Ralph Partridge,
Frances Marshall, and David Garnett arrived at Ham Spray House in time to say
good-bye. |