In her life and art Fini advanced an ideal of the "autonomous, absolute woman," who was beautiful, domineering and "governed by passion." Although she had numerous suitors, she refused to marry.
Fini's work may in fact be seen as a response to the patriarchal assumptions of Surrealism.
Fini places herself, or other women, at the center of her paintings as images of female power and autonomy.
www.glbtq.com /arts/fini_l.html (863 words)
Leonor Fini(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-09)
LeonorFini at CFM Gallery --Has a short bio at the top but if you scroll down to the bottom, there are many examples of Fini's art by art medium: oils, watercolors, drawings, graphics, and books.
LeonorFini: Comune di Ferrara, Galleria civica d'arte moderna, Palazzo dei diamanti, 2 luglio-30 settembre 1983 by LeonorFini.
Fini was raised in Trieste, Italy, by a mother who fled her "overly macho" Argentine father.
Fini's mother dressed her as a boy until she reached puberty to disguise her from hired kidnappers sent by her father to abduct her to Argentina.
Fini never officially joined the Surrealists and never married, but did produce work displayed at many Surrealist exhibitions, including her introduction to America in 1936 at the Museum of Modern Arts Fantastic Art, Dada and Surrealism.
LeonorFini's art offers a woman's take on surrealism, which large dealt with male fantasies, by offering a female view of the female body and of erotic pleasures.
Fini was one of the more international figures of the Surrealist movement.
Fini's works are to be found in many important collections of modern art.
Highly studied poses of LeonorFini with her head facing the viewer, her elegantly covered shoulders, her fl curled coiffure undoubtedly show the combined artistry of the painter and the photographer.
Fini has stressed duality more even than her predecessors, for the stagnant waters suggest a simultaneity of birth and death.
LeonorFini's stories and tales are sometimes borrowed from her previous publications and, to a limited extent, from other literary works.
Dali and Artaud, Fini saw the group's obsession with treatise and theories not as radical, but as a manifestation of what Dali called "typical petit bourgeois mentality".
For instance, Fini claimed to use images from her subconscious, adopted Georges Bataille's philosophy of a return to the mythological, spiritual and visionary aspects of primal cultures.
The women in her art are at once beautiful and alluring, yet powerful and threatening, embodying not only a female sexuality but that which had been thought of as exclusively male.
LeonorFini never considered herself a Surrealist at all, though she maintained close personal relationships with several members of the group (including Max Ernst and Leonora Carrington) and included work in several important Surrealist exhibitions in the 1930s.
Fini's refusal to declare herself a Surrealist was shared by other women active in Paris, London and New York during the 1930s and 1940s.
LEONORFINI (Galerie Dionne Catalog) Introduction by LeonorFINI; Afterward is an excerpt of a letter to Lincoln Kirstein from Pavel TCHELITCHEV,(French); Galerie Dionne; Paris; 1994; 91/4" x 11" w; 2 pp text; 25 color pp.
The loss Fini suffered with the tragic death of Constantin Jelenski in 1987 is evident in the depths of pain and emotion seen in much of this work.
The text, in Fini's handwriting, is interspersed with numerous funny sketches of cats in often droll, sometimes erotic, poses and situations.
Although she was friends with many of the leading surrealists (including Max Ernst and Victor Brauner), she never formally joined the movement though she did include her works in several of their International Surrealist Exhibitions.
Fini's sphinxes, of which this is one of the best known, like her vampires, ponder the paradox of women: wise, but destructive, beautiful, but inhuman.
Ours is an H.C. impression on hand-made gray Arches paper with Fini's cat's head drystamp.
She is LeonorFini; painter of the surreal, illustrator of books, theater designer, writer .
The questions as to what "school" of art she belongs to; to whom can she be compared, is she a painter, an illustrator, a designer, a feminist, a mystic, a voluptuary are superfluous.
Neil Zukerman, owner of CFM Gallery, had the extreme pleasure of being a friend of Fini's for the final eighteen years of her life.
cfmgallery.com /artists/Fini (277 words)
LEONOR FINI--BIBLIOGRAPHY(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-09)
Frechtman, Bernard,(trans.) "Mademoiselle: A Letter to LeonorFini,"
"LeonorFini: Preparing to Meet The Strangers of
Winter, Nina, "LeonorFini," in Interview with the Muse.
-->IM PARTICULARLY FOND of the women artists associated with early Surrealism, and spent a lot of time digging up references to LeonorFini and Toyen.
Rest assured that there are many more books and articles on these artists than I list here, and that in general the women associated with Surrealism make for fascinating reading.
Zukerman, Neil P. Leonor Fini: The Fine Artist As Illustrator, AB Bookmans Weekly (October 12, 1987), 13781382.
"Noted for her surreal fantasy paintings, the Italian-Argentine painter LeonoreFini has a life deeply rooted in her immediate surroundings and in the people and places she treasures.
In this program the Belgian film director Chris Vermocrcken has created a loving portrait that places what Fini loves side by side with what she paints.
The film takes us into Fini's home, where we meet the nineteen cats who share her life and who constantly turn up in her paintings.
Portrait of an Artist - Leonor Fini(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-09)
Whether it's Voodoo or Hoodoo, critics agree there is lots of mumbo-jumbo in The Skeleton Key, a movie where Kate Hudson plays a live-in caretaker to two mysterious New Orleans residents.
This most Oscar-nominated actor goes head-to-head with Uma Thurman in Prime, as a therapist who discovers that her son is dating one of her much older patients.
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Pittsburgh Organizing Group (and friends) bring back the Peace, Love, Anarchy Bucket Brigade for the second year in a row to insert an anti-war message into the St. Patrick's Day parade.
Others ecstatically waved their fingers in a peace sign in solidarity with the marchers.
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Portrait of an Artist - LeonorFini fansites created by RT users
A movie that pays homage to Top Gun, 2001 and more, Stealth never really takes flight due to the fact that it never seems to have an original idea of its own.
Antonio Banderas leaves his mark on every film; in his latest, the mark he leaves is a big "Z." Find out more here.
Women In Surrealism (2)(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-09)
GRIMLEY, Terry Seven Turn Surrealist in the City Kardomah The Birmingham Post, UK Arts and Entertainments Section 15 June 1991 Good article on the activities of the Surrealist artists based in Birmingham, UK during the 2nd World War.
KOCHNITZKY, Leon Shepherdess of the Sphinxes (on LeonorFini) VIEW June 1943 WOW!
This article is about the career and work of Fini, one of the most stunning of the Surrealists.