Yes, there was André Breton, Dali and di Chirico. But have you ever heard of Surrealist Leonor Fini?
August 30, 1908, Buenos Aires, Argentina - January 18, 1996, Paris, France) was an Argentine surrealist painter, graphic artist, costume and set designer and author
I want to share with you some snippets from various sources about the creative and accentric Leonor Fini.
"In Paris she became a legend almost overnight. When one of the Surrealists saw a painting of hers in a Paris gallery in 1936 and sought out its creator, she arranged a rendezvous in a local cafe and arrived dressed in a cardinal's scarlet robes, which she had purchased in a clothing store specializing in clerical vestments. 'I liked the sacrilegious nature of dressing as a priest, and the experience of being a woman and wearing the clothes of a man who would never know a woman's body.'
Like Da Vinci, she learned anatomy through the studying of corpses which she found in Trieste morgues.
Do ya think? ;-)
(in her work-a-day get-up) ;-)
For her, surrealism was beyond manifestos and theories. In the sexual realm, she found the group homophobic and misogynist despite its endeavors to idealize women and liberate sexual desire without the interference of morality.
Fini's extensive oeuvre has been an invaluable contribution to the development of a modern feminine consciousness, but her version differed somewhat from the other women surrealists. In contrast with Remedios Varo's ideal woman, Fini's was not cerebral, mystical or ironic but authoritarian, sensual, and governed by passion. She portrays them in an almost Amazonian sense: as goddesses, warriors, and voluptuaries.
Click the above image for a larger version and a great sample of Leonor Fini's work at
Ten Dreams Fine Art Galleries
Ten Dreams Fine Art Galleries
Men are often portrayed as lithe figures who are under the protection of her females.
The sphinx and cats play major parts in her paintings, as does the theme of 'the double'. She was equally adept at etching, drawing, watercolor and oil painting. Wikipedia
Elsa Schiaparelli's perfume "Shocking" 1937,
the packaging, designed by Leonor Fini, was also notable for the bottle in the shape of a woman's torso inspired by Mae West's tailor's dummy.
