Leonor Fini: Metamorphosis

"A painting is something like a spectacle, a theater piece in which each figure lives out her part." —Leonor Fini

Works realized by Fini in preparation for the set or costume design of theatrical events are paired in the exhibition with those that include reference to the theatre and its metamorphic potentials. Masks, which recur throughout Fini’s paintings and works on paper as a potent metaphorical motif, are also represented in the form of sculptures produced by the artist for her personal use at masquerade parties in Paris in the 1930s and ’40s. The decadent interiors and sartorial elegance exuded by her subjects gesture to the artist’s relationships to the fashion designers of her time, including Christian Dior and Elsa Schiaparelli. For Fini, identity could be likened to artistic expression—endlessly customizable and perpetually open to inspiration and imagination. 

 When asked about her participation in masked balls, Fini commented, “I have always loved to dress up in costume. There’s this aspect of glorifying oneself, of becoming larger than life. It’s not the dancing I like; that’s not the important part of it. I liked to go solely to make an entrance, to be intoxicated with myself for a few moments. That my costumes were so beautiful, so exaggerated, that everyone would stand back to watch as I passed by—that satisfied me completely.” 

In the postwar years, Fini continued to paint as well as design sets and costumes for ballet, theater, and film. She created designs for the Paris Opera, George Balanchine’s ballet Palaise de Crystal (now titled Symphony in C, 1947), Roland Petit’s Les Demoiselles de la Nuit (1948), for Maria Callas at the La Scala theater in Milan, and for over seventy productions at Paris theaters between 1946 and 1969 including Jean Genet’s The Maids and The Balcony. She also designed and created costumes for films including Renato Castellani’s Romeo and Juliet (1954), Federico Fellini’s 8 ½ (1963), and John Huston’s A Walk with Love and Death (1969). 

A defiant, enigmatic and often misunderstood figure, Fini’s biography intersects closely with many of the greatest thinkers and artists of the twentieth century, including Jean Cocteau, Man Ray, Leonora Carrington, Salvador Dalí, Joseph Cornell, Dora Maar, Anna Magnani, Albert Camus, Jean Genet, Federico Fellini, John Huston, Georges Bataille, Paul Éluard, and André Pieyre de Mandiargues. Growing up under the constant threat of kidnapping by her estranged father, Fini was routinely disguised by her mother when in public and eventually relocated to Paris in 1931. There, she cultivated a persona of intrigue and mystery, and though she shared a belief in the veracity and logic of dreams, she refused to formally associate with her Surrealist peers. Instead, she retained a striking independence throughout the duration of her personal and professional life. 

Fini was the subject of retrospective exhibitions in Belgium (1965), Italy (1983), Japan (1972-73, 1985-86), and France (1986). Additional retrospectives were staged posthumously at institutions in Italy (2005, 2009), Japan (2005), Germany (1997-98), and Sweden (2014), and the artist’s first U.S. museum survey was staged at New York’s Museum of Sex from 2018 until 2019, followed by solo exhibition at the Lilley Museum of Art, University of Nevada, Reno in 2021. In 2021 and 2022, her work was included in the expansive exhibition Surrealism Beyond Borders at Tate Modern in London. In 2022, Fini was prominently included in The Witch’s Cradle, one of five historical sections embedded within The Milk of Dreams, the main exhibition of the 59th Venice Biennale. 

"For Fini, art and life were inextricable, knit together by an abiding interest in the performance of self, nonnormative conceptions of gender and sexuality, and transformation."
—Cassie Packard, Artforum