Leonor Fini

(Argentina-Italy, 30/08/1907 - 18/01/1996)

Self-Portrait with Scorpion (1938)

Exploring the nature of beauty and age, love and sex and life and decay through her depiction of ambivalent sorceresses, Fini’s work flipped the switch on the subjugation of women as degenerate femme fatales with the women in her artworks, to whom she gave all the powers and complexity denied to herself and the women before her, ultimately working to resituate women artists away from the paradigms of the previous centuries.

Born in Buenos Aires, Fini’s early years were marked by drama and danger that would profoundly shape her artistic vision. Her youth was spent travelling through Europe on the run with her mother after her father refused their divorce and, on several occasions, attempted to orchestrate her kidnapping in order to take her back to Argentina. In an attempt to foil his repeated attempts, Fini spent seven years dressing as a boy whenever she left the house. This instilled in her a fluid understanding of gender roles, an identity that would later permeate her artistic work.

This early experience of gender transformation became a cornerstone of Fini’s artistic philosophy, as such, her paintings frequently feature androgynous figures and challenge conventional notions of femininity and masculinity, with the psychological complexity born from her childhood experience of literal disguise evolving into a sophisticated artistic exploration of identity, power and transformation. Her subjects often appeared caught between states, neither human nor animal, neither masculine nor feminine, reflecting her own early experience of identity.

Like many women associated with the Surrealist movement, Fini refused to sacrifice her independence and rejected Andre Breton’s manifesto and outright misogynistic views, instead, operating with great success outside the official group where she “embodied the surrealist ideal … equalled by few surrealists”. Fini’s independence allowed her to develop a uniquely feminine perspective within Surrealism, one that placed women at the centre of mystical and powerful narratives rather than as passive subjects of male desire.

In 1924, at the age of just 17, she exhibited her work for the first time in a group exhibition in Trieste which resulted in her invitation to Milan to execute her first portrait commission. Additionally, she was the first woman to have a solo exhibition at the Julien Levy Gallery in New York in 1939, a groundbreaking achievement that positioned her at the forefront of international Surrealism and demonstrated her ability to transcend geographical and gender-based limitations.

Her Surrealist occupation was not limited to painting, however, and throughout her life Fini collaborated with the fashion house Schiaparelli, bringing her surrealist sensibility to haute couture and helping to blur the boundaries between fine art and fashion.

Fini’s career spanned seven decades and she continued to paint until her death in 1996 with her work being included in nearly every major Surrealist exhibition since 1936. Her legacy extends beyond her individual artistic achievements to encompass her role as a pioneer who demonstrated that women artists could maintain both creative independence and commercial success while challenging the fundamental assumptions of their cultural moment. Through her art, her life and her unwavering commitment to feminine empowerment, Fini transformed not only how women were depicted in Surrealist art, but how they could be depicted within art as a whole.

Image: Leonor Fini, Self-Portrait with Scorpion (1938). Oil on canvas, 80.3 x 59.8 cm. Private collection.