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LEONOR FINI

Leonor Fini was an Argentine artist whose work reflects preoccupation with dreams, Jung, Freud, feminity as power, sexual tension, and the psychic synergy of woman and cat. She was disguised as a boy for the first seven years of her life to avoid kidnapping. She learned to draw bodies by hanging out in morgues.

An older Argentine woman with curly black hair poses dramtically in a black robe with her two giant longhaired white cats. The photo is black and white.



Red Vision. Fini went blind as a teenager, but later regained her vision. As an adult, she attended art openings in elaborate costumes, draped in feathers and tulle, with hair glowing unnatural blues and golds. Other times, she dressed in full male drag to avoid recognition.

A young girl with white skin, hair, and robe is approached by a floating red being in a sterile gray room. In the background, a figure stands at a window, perhaps watching th world through a telescope.



Fini once said, “Marriage never appealed to me, I’ve never lived with one person. Since I was 18, I’ve always preferred to live in a sort of community - A big house with my atelier and cats and friends, one with a man who was rather a lover and another who was rather a friend. And it has always worked.” I'd like to believe this painting, Tres Gracias, is about her desire for two beautiful service bottoms (who may or may not be the aforementioned lover and friend).

A painting of a woman on a bench wearing one sock and one boot, her other boot on the floor below her. Her legs are being held open by two red-haired lady servants. She appears bored, and the servants are expressionless.


Cortège, oil on canvas. When I tried to research this piece, I found nothing but references to the male surrealist painter who purchased it.

A dark painting of several creatures, mostly bird-like, with their beaks and mouths ajar. The colors are red and burnt umber. The sky is fiery.



Dithyrambe, oil and paper on canvas. “I paint pictures which do not exist and which I would like to see."

two twin feminine heads on a cat's body, like a sphinx.