In 2005 on July 7, the world stopped in London. I was on my way to meet the author of a book about the love triangle of surrealists Max Ernst, Gala Dali and poet Paul Eluard before a trip to Charleston House, the home of Vanessa and Clive Bell and Duncan Grant. I waited at Victoria Station for what seemed like forever and suddenly agents in acid green vests began running through the station. There had been a tube bombing and the station was being evacuated. After some desperate attempts to reach the author, I boarded the train to Sussex. I only found out later that he had been on the train behind the train that was bombed. But my day at Charleston was thus also surreal: the house is a wonder of color and decoration, evoking a bygone time when home and hearth were the breeding ground of creativity. Now, Charleston(get IG address) is in jeopardy like many other cultural sites and all our homes are the only safe haven. The Covidbomb, just another terrifying moment in history.

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.