[1][2] At the start of World War II, the family moved to Lambourn in Berkshire where her father worked on a farm and Joanna Carrington developed what would become a life-long love of the countryside.
[3] Aged seventeen she studied at the summer school in east Anglia run by Cedric Morris, who was greatly impressed by her talent for painting.
[3] Returning to England, Carrington studied at the Central School of Art and Design in London from 1949 to 1952, where she was taught by both Mervyn Peake and Keith Vaughan.
[3][4][1] In 1966, Carrington married the artist and film director Christopher Mason and exhibited works at the Upper Grosvenor Gallery and at Crane Arts.
[3][4] In 1973, after Mason made a film on the naive artist Alfred Wallis, Carrington adopted the pseudonym Reg Pepper.