Visage by Leonor Fini

LEONOR FINI (Argentina, 1907 - 1996 France)
Major listed Surrealist painter, set and costume designer, book illustrator and graphic artist.

Born in Buenos Aires in 1907 of an Italian mother and Argentine father whom she never knew, Leonor Fini was surrounded throughout her youth in Trieste, Italy by a highly cultivated, cosmopolitan milieu. Self-taught, Fini began to paint as a young child and possessed of a fiercely independent nature, left her family first in 1927 to spend a year in Milan and again in 1931 to establish her career as a painter in Paris. Although she never formally joined the Surrealist Group under Andre Breton, Fini became friends with many of them, including, Dali, Ernst, Bataille, Cartier-Bresson and Man Ray, among others. Her circle included poets, writers, prima ballerinas, opera stars and the like. She painted portraits of Jean Genet, Andre Pieyre de Mandiargues, Princess Francesca Ruspoli, Leonora Carrington, Margot Fonteyn, Joy Willams Brown, Maria Felix, Suzanne Flon, Maria Casares, and Anna Magnani, among others. Her self-portraits are legendary.

VISAGE is a fine example of Leonor Fini's use of brushstroke and coloration in a small, intimate portrait. The original Dutch wood frame has an inserted band of tortoise shell and measures overall 16.5 X 15.5. Please contact the gallery for further information on Leonor Fini and her work. The newest biography, LEONOR FINI - METAMORPHOSES D' UN ART, by Peter Webb has just been released world-wide.

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