A black and white photo of Leonor Fini, a white woman with her hair pinned back. She wears all black and holds a clear bowl over her head.
“I am against society, eminently asocial, and I am linked to nature like a witch rather than as priestess, as I’ve told you. I am in favor of a world where there is little or no sex distinction.”
– Leonor Fini
The halls of surrealist art are inherently queer in certain ways, with few rules, and even more rule-breaking, it can’t be surprising that queer people flock to this particular style - what is more surprising is how queer people have been and continue to be erased from the history of the movement. Even within the golden age of this movement, the inherently queer works of artists such as Leonor Fini were shocking, not only in traditional art circles but to the same people who made their names challenging norms. It seemed that even in the most transgressive of spaces, the mastery of women, androgyny, and queerness in general were enough to make the likes of Andre Beton and Salvador Dali clutch their metaphoric pearls.
Born on the 30th of August, 1907, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Leonor Fini’s father was a tyrannical man with extremist religious views that led to his young wife running away with Leonor when she was only eighteen months old. Fleeing to Trieste, the two would suffer through a long custody battle. As Leonor’s father was Catholic, he refused his wife’s pleas for a divorce, and it was twelve years before she was granted one by the Italian courts. Through this troubled time, there were multiple kidnapping attempts on behalf of Leonor’s father, to the point that Leonor’s mother was forced to dress Leonor in traditionally masculine clothing in hopes of disguising her.
From a young age, Leonor was a rebellious child, getting kicked out of every school she entered. She would instead learn by reading through her uncle’s library. When Leonor was still quite young, due to an eye infection, she was forced to wear bandages over her eyes. Having to conjure shapes and images from memory, she would credit this experience as the beginning of her long and twisting road to becoming an artist. While Leonor received no formal training in the arts, she found a way to study, visiting local morgues in order to learn about anatomy and teaching herself artistic techniques.
Finding success from the age of seventeen, Leonor moved to Paris and found a place within the pre-war surrealist movement of the time. While her eccentric way of dressing was partially credited for her immediate impact in Paris, her artistic talent could not be ignored. While Leonor Fini is now known as one of the masters of Surrealism, within her own life, she denied that label as the leader of the surrealist movement at the time, Andre Beton was a rather notorious misogynist, and she rejected the movement as a whole. She spoke of this, saying:
“I disliked the deference with which everyone treated Breton. I hated his anti-homosexual attitudes and also his misogyny. It seemed that women were expected to keep quiet...yet I felt that I was just as good as the men...I never saw the point of being part of one group, and...I refused the label Surrealist...I preferred to walk alone.”
It was also clear that despite her ability and interesting work, she was not entirely respected in these spaces, with Salvador Dali admitting she was good but declaring that ”talent is stored in the balls.”
It was not just the fact that Leonor Fini was a woman that upset artistic circles; it was her work itself. Painting men as feminine, and women as powerful, including same-sex attraction and androgyny in her work, her paintings remain scandalous in many ways. Credited as the first female painter to paint a male nude, she included mythical creatures such as the sphynx, portraying a new way of looking at the myth with the sphynx as the tragic hero instead of a seductress villain. In general, Leonor was drawn to the idea of the villainized female sexuality, saying:
“Myself, I know that I belong with the idea of Lilith, the anti-Eve, and that my universe is that of the spirit.”
While Leonor Fini is known for her paintings, they are hardly her only contribution to the artistic world. Conceiving a ballet, illustrating novels (using her name to help books get published, writing three books, costuming theatrical productions, being photographed in the nude, and designing furniture and perfume bottles, Leonor Fini’s interests were as diverse as her works were scandalous. Her art was not contained only to her canvas either; she would often show up at social gatherings cross-dressing, donning costumes she had designed, or wearing almost nothing at all. She said of this:
“I have always loved, and lived, my own theatre.”
Sometimes she showed up at parties with her friends, only to leave once she was satisfied her costume had drawn enough attention. Known as one of the most photographed people of the 20th century, she was not always this way. She said of the change:
“When I was a child, I hated being photographed. I ran away...Now I am always photographed: in costume, in disguise, in everyday dress. But I do not like snapshots, nothing is more false than the ‘natural’. It is the ‘pose’ which is revealing, and I am curious and amused to see my multiplicity – which I think I know quite well – affirmed by these images.”
Though her way of dressing was certainly notable, the claim that it is responsible for her fame in Paris rather than just an extension of her artistic talents is rooted largely in misogyny. Leonor Fini described her draw to dress up:
“To dress up, to cross-dress, is an act of creativity. And in applying this to ones-self, one becomes other characters or one’s proper character. It is to be driven to invent, to be matched [but] also changing and multiple...It is one – or many – representations of the self, it is the exteriorisation in excess of the phantasms which one carries within their self, it is a creative expression of the raw state.”
Unlike some of her contemporaries, her behaviour was generally harmless, and thus she was well-liked both within and outside of artistic circles. Gathering a number of lovers of multiple genders, Leonor was not particularly interested in monogamy as a lifestyle. Some of her most famous relationships would be with Max Ernst and his romantic partner Carrington. She and Carrington, in particular, had a close relationship, which, while seeming to end its sexual/romantic aspects due to the mental strain on both women at the beginning of the Second World War, continued in a lifelong friendship. She was married once to Federico Veneziani and then swore off marriage. Leonor was open about her bisexuality, saying:
“I am a woman and have had the ‘feminine experience’, but I am not a lesbian.”
Romantically she would settle down with two men: Polish essayist Konstanty Jeleński and Italian Count Stanislao Lepri, the second of whom would abandon his fascistic diplomatic career in Italy due to Leonor’s influence and become a painter instead. The three would stay together, travelling between a Paris apartment and an abandoned monastery that Leonor remodelled and filled with cats and artwork. Her monastery would build a reputation for parties and hedonistic activities, and her large friend group frequented the location. In many ways, she was living exactly the life she described wanting most when she explained in an interview:
“Marriage never appealed to me, I've never lived with one person. Since I was 18, I've always preferred to live in a sort of community - A big house with my atelier and cats and friends, one with a man who was rather a lover and another who was rather a friend. And it has always worked.”
It was only later in life that Leonor would drift farther away from her extremely extroverted ways. This society had so long gawked at her, providing less interest. She said:
“I am against society, eminently asocial, and I am linked to nature like a witch rather than as priestess, as I’ve told you. I am in favor of a world where there is little or no sex distinction.”
The sexism Leonor had experienced throughout her career had chafed at her for a long time, though she had always denied the label of feminist. She spent less and less time in public as she lived, though she never disappeared completely. With her two lovers as muses, Leonor would be painting prolifically throughout her life, dying at 86 on January 18th, 1996.
Leonor Fini’s life could by no means be described as easy or simple; in fact, nothing about Leonor could. Nevertheless, it is clear that she very much built herself the life she wanted. Not without the help of generational wealth, she was able to shape and build a small corner of the world around her where she could express herself rather thoroughly. Though artistic communities, in general, have a reputation for accepting all kinds, it is clear that it was not accepting of Leonor Fini. Still, she made a space for herself and took the dangerous path of being authentically queer, and through that, she was able to find people like her.
REFERENCES AND FURTHER READING
Disclaimer: some of the sources may contain triggering material
Adrian-Diaz, J. (2018, December 5). Meet Leonor Fini, the Surrealist Sidelined for Subverting Gender Norms. Vulture. https://www.vulture.com/2018/12/leonor-fini-a-surrealist-whose-legacy-is-being-revisited.html
AnOther. (2018, October 9). The 20th-Century Artist Who Challenged the Myth of Womanhood. AnOther. https://www.anothermag.com/fashion-beauty/11239/the-20th-century-artist-who-challenged-the-myth-of-womanhood
Chadwick, W. (2011). D’Un jour à l’autre: A Tale of Love, War and Friendship. 9, 264.
Dames Done Wrong: Leonor Fini | Sartle - Rogue Art History. (2020, June 9). https://www.sartle.com/blog/post/dames-done-wrong-leonor-fini
Hall of Fame: Leonor Fini | Feminine Moments. (2010, July 6). https://www.femininemoments.dk/blog/hall-of-fame-leonor-fini/
How To Be A Surrealist Queen, According To Near-Forgotten Artist Leonor Fini. (2015, November 13). HuffPost. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/leonor-fini-surrealism_n_5645158ce4b08cda34882e57
Lauter, E. (1980). Leonor Fini: Preparing to Meet the Strangers of the New World. Woman’s Art Journal, 1(1), 44. https://doi.org/10.2307/1358018
Leonor Fini. (n.d.-a). Sothebys.Com. Retrieved April 29, 2022, from https://www.sothebys.com/en/artists/leonor-fini
Leonor Fini. (n.d.-b). Obelisk Art History. Retrieved April 29, 2022, from https://arthistoryproject.com/artists/leonor-fini/
Leonor Fini: 6 Little Known Facts | Barnebys Magazine. (2020, July 14). Barnebys.Com. https://www.barnebys.com/blog/leonor-fini-6-little-known-facts
Leonor Fini Paintings, Bio, Ideas. (n.d.). The Art Story. Retrieved April 29, 2022, from https://www.theartstory.org/artist/fini-leonor/
Leonor Fini—Biography. (n.d.). Retrieved April 29, 2022, from http://www.leonor-fini.com/en/biography/
Mahon, A. (2013). La Feminité triomphante: Surrealism, Leonor Fini, and the Sphinx. Dada/Surrealism, 19, 1–20. https://doi.org/10.17077/0084-9537.1274
McDermon, D. (2018, November 6). Sex, Surrealism and de Sade: The Forgotten Female Artist Leonor Fini. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/06/arts/design/leonor-fini-artist.html
Nechvatal, J. (2016, January 13). The Unclassifiable Art of Leonor Fini, a True Paris Bohemian. Hyperallergic. http://hyperallergic.com/267496/the-unclassifiable-art-of-leonor-fini-a-true-paris-bohemian/
Noh, D. (n.d.). A Unique Feminist Surrealist – Gay City News. Retrieved April 29, 2022, from https://gaycitynews.com/a-unique-feminist-surrealist/
queerplaces—Leonor Fini. (n.d.). Retrieved April 29, 2022, from http://www.elisarolle.com/queerplaces/klmno/Leonor%20Fini.html
Review, T. P. (2018, August 8). Leonor Fini: Theatre of Desire. The Paris Review. https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2018/08/08/leonor-fini-theatre-of-desire/
Scott, T. (2019, March 8). Leonor Fini – Author and Artist. The Heroine Collective. http://www.theheroinecollective.com/leonor-fini/
Sherwood, H., Arts, H. S., & correspondent, culture. (2022, March 15). Leonor Fini works among treasures for sale from extraordinary New York home. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2022/mar/15/leonor-fini-works-among-treasures-for-sale-from-extraordinary-new-york-home
The Colorful World of Leonor Fini: Surrealism’s Pioneering Non-Conformist. (2022, March 21). Street Art Museum Tours. https://streetartmuseumtours.com/2022/03/21/the-colorful-world-of-leonor-fini-surrealisms-pioneering-non-conformist/