In a Zoom offered by the Peggy Guggenheim collection this week on The Femme Fatale--first of three in a series on Myths, Muses and Models--this painting by Max Ernst was discussed, especially as an echo of a da Vinci at the Louvre, the Madonna and Saint Anne, and around its sexual implications (pre-Dorothea Tanning, first marriage). This is early Ernst, the Surrealist Ernst, before he came into his own, later more craggy style.

But to me, this work jumped out as a precursor to Francis Bacon. The erotic imagery felt so much like one of Bacon's central, torqued, tortured figures in a brilliant, empty background. I look forward to reading the new Bacon biography to see if he actually had the chance to see this work.

Max Ernst, The Kiss, 1927, Peggy Guggenheim Collection

When you entered the recent Gallery Di Donna show of Surrealist artists, it was as if entering a museum. A companion exhibition of Leonora Carrington’s work at a Wendi Norris Gallery pop up makes Madison Avenue into a rare corridor of very special art instead of the latest overpriced shoe.

Carrington had a retrospective last year in Mexico but it did not travel to the US so this is a chance to see a selection of her work. Carrington was mad for Max Ernst, as was Dorothea Tanning (I had just seen her recent retrospective at the Tate, which also did not come to the US) Peggy Guggenheim, Gala Dali and assorted others. Carrington was not even 20 when she met the older artist but he was clearly catnip and they moved in together in Paris as part of the flourishing Surrealist circle. A later relationship with artist Remedios Varo in Mexico, her ultimate home, was also very productive. A lifetime of her work exploring nature, women, magic and domesticity replete with imagery of animals, humans and hybrids is both ethereal and powerful.