Leonor Fini French-Italian, 1908-1996

Born in Buenos Aires, Leonor Fini spent her childhood in Trieste, in an intellectual environment, where she had the opportunity to meet literary and artistic personalities such as Jaymes Joyce, Umberto Saba and Italo Svevo. Self-taught, she exhibited for the first time at the age of 17 in Trieste, and then moved to Milan, where she met the Futurist Carra and discovered the Lombardy School and Italian mannerism. The latter left its mark on Fini's work, which remains difficult to classify in an artistic movement, despite its obvious links with Surrealism: all her life, the artist sought to create her own "imaginary museum".

In 1931, Leonor left her family and moved to Paris where, the following year, she held her first solo exhibition at the Galerie Bonjean, where Christian Dior was the director. In Paris she became friends with Henri Cartier-Bresson, André Pieyre de Mandiargues, Georges Bataille, Max Jacob, Paul Eluard, Max Ernst, without however ever belonging to the surrealist group. In 1936, she made her first trip to New York where she exhibited at the Julien Levy Gallery and took part in the famous exhibition "Fantastic Art, Dada and Surrealism" at the Museum of Modern Art. In 1939, she organised an exhibition of furniture by surrealist artists such as herself, Dali, Meret Oppenheim and Max Ernst for her friend Leo Castelli at the René Drouin Gallery on Place Vendôme.

The post-war years will remain for the general public those of Leonor Fini's entry into the stage: creation of masks, participation in numerous costume balls, sets and costumes for Georges Balanchine's Le Palais de Cristal at the Paris Opera, Roland Petit's Les Demoiselles de la Nuit at the Théâtre Marigny, L'Enlèvement au Sérail (The Abduction from the Seraglio) at the Scala in Milan, as well as for plays in collaboration with Jean Mercure, Jacques Audiberti, Albert Camus, Jean Genet, Jean Le Poulain.

Always passionate about poetry and literature, Leonor Fini illustrated dozens of works. Her work is permeated by this lyricism, and by the female figure: powerful, sensual and magical.