Art History: Leonor Fini
Since moving to Seattle, I’ve tried to find ways to get out and enjoy the nightlife of my new city. My new favorite activity is the Pioneer Square art walk, which happens every first Thursday of the month. People walk from gallery to gallery and can enjoy a variety of different types of art.
While browsing, I like to keep my eyes open for any artists I want to talk about. That’s where I discovered Leonor Fini- at Fredrick Holmes & Company. Along the back wall, placed strategically among pieces by her contemporaries Salvador Dali and Max Ernst.
Duality, from the Fredrick Holmes & Company Gallery in Seattle, WA.
This quote from the curator hangs alongside some of her etchings on the first floor:
Curators Statement from the Fredrick Holmes & Company Gallery in Seattle, WA.
Some pertinent quotes include:
“The iconoclastic Leonor Fini was arguably the most ferociously and heroically independent woman artist of the 20th century. Fini herself never accepted the label of “woman artist,” and likewise, never considered herself a Surrealist. She never sacrificed her independence to André Breton, the leader of the movement, and abhorred his misogynist views….
Leonor Fini (1907 - 1996) was by far, one of the most remarkable and iconoclastic women of the 20th century, Fini rejected the term “woman artist”, and while on the periphery of surrealism in Paris and intimate friends with many of it’s formal members, including Salvador Dali and Max Ernst, and others, she refused the role of ‘muse’ that women often played in the eyes of their male counterparts…
Nevertheless, her work was included in every major surrealist exhibition, including at the Julien Levy Gallery, New York, in 1936 and she was included in the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) groundbreaking exhibition, FANTASTIC ART, DADA AND SURREALISM, Dec. 19, 1936 - Jan. 17, 1937….”
Council of Love 5, from the Fredrick Holmes & Company Gallery in Seattle, WA.
Leonor Fini was born in 1907 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She moved around frequently with her mother until eventually moving to Milan at 17 to become an artist. She exhibited at a gallery that same year, and took commissions to paint portraits of visiting dignitaries until her first one-woman show in 1929 in the Gallery Barbaroux. She spent a lot of time with other surrealist artists. She is the second artist on my list to have worked for Elsa Schiaparelli doing design work (the first being Merret Oppenheim.)
Shocking by Elsa Sciaparelli, designed by Leonor Fini. 1937.
Fini designed the bottle for the perfume “Shocking” in the shape of Mae Wests torso. She was well-known for depicting powerful erotic women. In fact, when I entered the Gallery that evening, the first thing that drew me in was Fini’s carefully etched drawings of playful female eroticism. It was powerfully feminine, avoiding the male gaze without subduing her subjects sexuality. Fini had been inspired by renaissance painters, but still maintained something whimsical and uniquely her own in her style.
Council of Love, 16 from the Fredrick Holmes & Company Gallery in Seattle, WA.
Of all the artists I’ve covered in this series so far, I think I’m the most drawn to Fini’s work. There’s something bold and feminine about it that I plan to study and incorporate into my own practices.
I’m grateful I was able to see some of her work in person too! If you’re in the Seattle Area, make sure you check out the Pioneer Square Art Walk on the first Thursday of every month!
