Leonor Fini

Trieste and Milan

Leonor Fini was born in Buenos Aires and raised in Trieste. She educated herself by looking closely at Renaissance and Mannerist painting, then moved to Milan in 1925 and entered a circle that included Giorgio de Chirico's brother Alberto Savinio and other Italian Magical Realists.

Paris and Surrealism

Fini moved to Paris in 1931. She became friendly with artists and writers around Surrealism but did not accept André Breton's authority or formal membership in the group. Her paintings developed their own population of sphinxes, ceremonial figures, sleeping men, and commanding women.

She exhibited at Galerie Bonjean in Paris in 1937. Photographers in the same circle repeatedly made her portrait: Man Ray photographed Fini through the later 1930s, and Dora Maar photographed her in 1936. Those images became part of Fini's carefully constructed public identity.

Painting, theater, and books

After the war, Fini designed sets and costumes for theater and opera, including productions at the Opéra Garnier in Paris and La Scala in Milan. She also illustrated books and designed masks and costumes for the elaborate balls that were part of her social world.

Writing occupied more of her later years, including fiction and books about cats. She continued painting without joining a single movement and died near Paris in 1996.