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.  John B.Myers, a gallery dealer who documented his experiences with surrealists, wrote of this double standard: 
 

         "The sexuality in which he (Breton) was involved was rigorously against what he considered perversion. For example, he detested male homosexuality to the point where he once threatened to expel a member of the surrealistmovement if he didn't get married. On the other hand, voyeurism and lesbianism disturbed him not at all..."
    (Myers 1969, 11-12)

Fini was not without ideological contradictions of her own. Despite  her denial of being a surrealist, she adhered to many of  surrealism's tenants. In fact they played an integral role in her quest to envision a "new woman".  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.

She founded her methodology on surrealism's tenant of delving into the self and described herself as living a life in revolt.  She used surrealism as both a weapon against the onslaught of prehistoric social conventions and a tool for constructing a modern society that allowed female participation in existence. According to art writer/educator Julie Byrd: 

"Profound belief in the ability to shape the exterior world according to one's desire is rare among women of Fini's generation. Cultivating her own individuality, she placed her own freedom and autonomy to a degree that seems the embodiment of the surrealist ideal, but that was, in fact, equalled by few surrealists."

Refusal to consider herself a surrealist and her willingness to nonetheless align herself with the movement was never an issue with the Surrealists.  It was not unusual for the group to seek allies and sympathizers from non-members and similar revolutionary movements. Picasso and Giacommetti were among these allies, however their affiliations were temporary and sporadic..  She was perhaps the only outsider who consistently kept close to the group. 

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.

Compared with Tanning and Carrington, Fini's art did not symbolically transfer  female sexuality onto childhood, she placed it within the adult realm. There is none of the resentment toward  masculinized society that appears in the other surrealist women's art. Neither is there the subliminal but ubiquitous sense of  determinism that underlies much of their work.  Varo and Kahlo, depict the masculine position  as arbitrary.  Fini was too insolent for such kindness.

Her work simply ignores or reduces the masculine position to insignificance.  Whereas most of the other surrealist women's art contains statements about  female sexuality, Fini's is more a proclaimation and celebration of it. 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.  In that sense, Fini envisioned a historically unique--and prophetic-- feminine sexual duality absent from the other surrealist women's constructs. 

After WWII, Fini's career expanded.  She designed theatre sets and costumes, and did book illustrations.  Her work has been exhibited in major galleries and museums throughout the world. Although the surrealist moniker followed her until her death in 1996, she always rejected categorization of any kind.  She changed styles often and employed various techniques and media as if to shrug off her tenacious image as a "woman surrealist". 

Her efforts had no affect on the public or the academia and perhaps never will.  It is almost impossible to consider her life and her art without proclaiming her a surrealist--an extraordinary one at that.

Principales Expositions Personelles:

1948 Palais des Beaux-
         Arts, Bruxelles
1956 Galerie Drouand-David,
         Paris
1957 Galerie Galatea, Turin
1959 Galerie Reve Droite,
         Paris
1963 Iolas Gallery, New York
1965 Grande exposition
         retrospective au Casino
         de Knokke-le-Zoute
1965 Galerie Iolas, Paris
1967 Hannover Gallery,
         Londres
1968 Galerie Torbandena,
         Trieste
1969 Galerie Brockstaedt,
         Hambourg
1969 Galerie Gmurzynska,
         Cologne
1970 Galerie Isa Brachot,
         Bruxelles
1970 Galerie Lambert Monet,
         Geneve
1970 Galerie II Fauno,
         Turin
1972 Galerie Verriere, Paris
1972 Exposition retrospective
         au Japon
          (Toyko, Osaka, Kyoto)
1974 Galerie Altmann-
         Carpentier, Paris

Autres expostions
personelles a Rome, Milan, Zurich, Anvers, Turin, Le Caire, Alexandrie, Geneve, etc

Principales Expositions Collectives:

1957 Boach, Goya et le
         Fantastique, Bordeaux
1964 Le Surrealisme, Galerie
         Charpentier, Paris
1966 Labyrinthe, Berlin
1966 Art fantastique, Vienne
1968 Festival de
         Recklinghausen
1968 Art erotique, Lund
1968 Tresors du Surrealisme,
         Knokke-le-Zoute
1970 Surrealisme, Musee de
         Bordeaux
1970 Hommage a Durer,
         Nuremberg
1972 Le Surrealisme, Haus der
         Kunst, Munich et Musee
         des Arts Decoratifs,
         Paris
1974 Collection Peggy
         Guggenheim, Orangerie,
         Paris

Elle a participe a la Biennale de Venice, a la Quadriennale de Rome, au Salon de Mai de Paris

Ses tableaux se trouvent dans les musees d'Art moderne de Paris, Rome, Bruxelles, Grenoble, Trieste, Lodz (Pologne) Geneve, etc

Notes Biographiques:

Leonor Fini est une peintre française d'origine italienne (Buenos Aires, Argentine, 1908- Paris, 1996).

De culture très cosmopolite. De nature indépendante, elle quitta sa famille à 17 ans, résida ensuite à Milan puis adopta le classicisme et la peinture tonale de peintres comme Carrà.

En 1933 elle quitte l'Italie pour Paris où elle fréquente André Breton et les Surréalistes; s'inspirant de leurs théories, elle réalise ses premiers dessins « automatiques ».

Elle s'y lia d'amitié avec Paul Éluard, Max Ernst, Georges Bataille, sans jamais appartenir au groupe surréaliste. Elle partagea cependant leur goût du fantastique, du symbolisme onirique, qu'elle transpose dans ses œuvres avec un grande élégance, un goût sûr, le sens de l'harmonie décorative et une délicatesse rafinée. Elle ne fréquenta aucune école des Beaux-Arts et sa formation est entièrement autodidacte, d'où sans doute la difficulté de l'identifier à un courant particulier de l'art contemporain, car son évolution a surtout été marquée par des affinités électives et par son propre "Musée imaginaire".

À ses débuts elle peignit de nombreux portraits dont ceux de Jean Genet, d'Anna Magnani, de Jacques Audiberti.

Elle fut une extraordinaire illustratrice ; on lui doit notamment l'illustration de textes d'Edgar Poe, de Sade, et de Marcel Aymé.

Leonor Fini a continué de peindre jusqu'à la fin de sa vie.





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