Leonor Fini facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Leonor Fini
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Leonor Fini, 1936
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| Born | 30 August 1907 Buenos Aires, Argentina
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| Died | 18 January 1996 (aged 88) Paris, France
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| Nationality | Italian, Argentinean |
| Known for | Painting Illustration Writing |
| Movement | Surrealism |
Leonor Fini (born August 30, 1907 – died January 18, 1996) was a talented artist. She was born in Argentina but was also Italian. She was known for her surrealist paintings, designs, illustrations, and books.
Contents
Early Life and Art
Leonor Fini was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Her mother was from Trieste, and her father was from Italy. Her father was a very strict man, which made her mother unhappy. When Leonor was very young, her mother took her back to Trieste to live.
Leonor grew up in Trieste. She was a bit rebellious and was even asked to leave several schools. Her parents had a difficult family situation, and her mother sometimes had to move quickly or use disguises to protect Leonor.
When she was a teenager, Leonor had an eye problem that made her wear bandages over both eyes. After she got better, she decided she wanted to become an artist.
At 17, she moved to Milan, Italy. Later, around 1931 or 1932, she moved to Paris, France. In Paris, she met many famous artists like Max Ernst, Picasso, and Salvador Dalí. She even traveled around Europe with some of them. A famous photo of her in a pool was taken by Henri Cartier-Bresson during one of these trips.
Leonor Fini's Career
Leonor Fini did not go to art school. However, she learned a lot about art from growing up in Italy, where she saw many old Renaissance and Mannerist artworks.
When she was just 17, one of her paintings was shown in a gallery in Trieste. She even got jobs painting portraits for important people in Milan. Her first solo art show was in 1929.
Her first big exhibition in the United States was in 1936 in New York. Leonor was an important artist in the Surrealist art movement, even though she never officially joined the group. She often showed her work alongside other Surrealist artists. In 1943, her art was part of a special show in New York called Exhibition by 31 Women.
Leonor Fini was very creative and worked in many different art forms.
- In 1949, she helped create a ballet called Le Rêve de Leonor (Leonor's Dream).
- She had many art shows in London in the 1960s.
- In 1986, a large show of her work in Paris attracted thousands of people every day. This show included over 260 pieces, like paintings, drawings, and designs for theatre costumes.
Her art was unique. Many of the characters in her paintings were female or looked like both male and female. She often painted strong female figures, like goddesses from Greek mythology. This was her way of challenging traditional ideas about women.
Leonor also painted portraits of many famous people, including actors and writers. She designed the bottle for the perfume "Shocking" for the fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli. This perfume bottle became very popular.
From the 1930s onwards, Leonor also took on design projects to earn money. She became well-known for her fashion sense. She loved creating costumes that mixed human and animal features. She designed costumes for many plays, ballets, and operas, and even for two films: Romeo and Juliet (1954) and A Walk with Love and Death (1968).
Besides painting and designing, Leonor Fini also illustrated about 50 books. She chose books that interested her, including works by famous writers like Edgar Allan Poe and Charles Baudelaire. She also wrote three novels herself in the 1970s. She was very generous and often gave her drawings to writers to help them publish their books.
In 2009, Italy held a big exhibition to celebrate Leonor Fini's work and her friends.
Personal Life
Leonor Fini was married once for a short time. Later, she lived with the Italian Count Stanislao Lepri, who became an artist like her. In 1952, a Polish writer named Konstanty Jeleński joined them in their Paris home. The three of them lived together for many years.
Leonor loved cats very much. She had as many as 23 Persian cats at one time! They even shared her bed and were allowed to walk on the dining table during meals.
Legacy
Leonor Fini's life has inspired others.
- A song about her, "Leonor," is on the 1997 album Jet by the Welsh artist Katell Keineg.
- A book called Leonor Fini Catalogue Raisonné of the Oil Paintings was published in 2021.
- In 2018, a short film about her, Gloria's Call, was made by Cheri Gaulke.
Retrospectives
- Pourquoi pas?, Bildmuseet, Umeå University, Sweden. January 31, 2014 - May 11, 2014
Filmography
- Leonor Fini, a documentary film by Chris Vermorcken (1987).
See also
In Spanish: Leonor Fini para niños
