Léonor Fini (buenos Aires, 1907 - Paris, 1996) The Painter (study Of Characters, Costumes)

Léonor Fini (Buenos Aires, 1907 - Paris, 1996) The Painter (study of figures, costumes) tempera and Indian ink on paper Born in Argentina, Fini grew up in Trieste, Italy. She began painting at a very young age, attracted by the painters of the Quattrocento and the Mannerists of the 16th century. A self-taught artist, she grew up in the shadow of her uncle's rich library, where she also discovered Aubrey Beardsley, Gustav Klimt and the world of the Pre-Raphaelites. He learned anatomy by drawing in the morgue of Trieste and by copying works in museums. In 1924, he moved to Milan to pursue his vocation as an artist, and in 1931 to Paris where he would spend the rest of his life. In Paris, she became involved in the activities of the Surrealist group and came into contact with other artists such as Paul Éluard, Henri Cartier-Bresson, who photographed her nude in 1933, Max Ernst, who was her lover for a time and a close friend for the rest of her life, Georges Bataille, Picasso, André Pieyre de Mandiargues and Salvador Dalí. She was also friends with Jean Cocteau, Giorgio de Chirico and Alberto Moravia. Fini's first French exhibition took place the same year that she arrived in Paris, in 1931, in the gallery of Christian Dior, then a gallerist. In 1936, he participated in the revolutionary exhibition Fantastic Art, Dada, Surrealism at MoMA in New York and in 1938, he held his first North American exhibition in the same city. He participated in numerous exhibitions in Europe, in addition to the famous Surrealism exhibition at the Burlington Gallery in London in 1966. Important retrospective exhibitions were also dedicated to him in Belgium (1965), Tokyo (1972) and Paris (1986). Although he exhibited several times with the surrealists, Fini was never considered a surrealist artist due to his love for a very sui generis classicism, full of evocations and symbolism. Fini also painted portraits; among others, Jean Genet, María Félix, Anna Magnani, Margot Fontaine, Alida Valli, Suzanne Flon, Silvia Monfort or Leonor Carrington. He made engravings and drawings, and illustrated works by great authors such as Edgar Allan Poe, Shakespeare, Baudelaire or the Marquis de Sade, among others. She also distinguished herself as a designer, working in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s on a variety of projects, from designing the packaging for the perfume Shocking for Elsa Schiaparelli to sets and costumes for plays, ballets and films. These include Renato Castellani's Romeo and Juliet (1954), Federico Fellini's 8 ½, Oskar Panizza's The Council of Love (Critics' Prize 1969) and John Huston's Walk Through Love and Death. In the 1970s and 1980s, Fini devoted herself increasingly to writing, publishing essays and novels.