GLR May-June 2023

armless female, nude from the waist down. While mainly known for her paintings and engravings, Fini was also a talented designer, including the bottle design for the “Shocking” brand of perfume made by Schiaparelli. She also fashioned costumes for theatrical and operatic productions. Some of her set and costume work included George Balan chine’s ballet Le Palais de Cristal, Jean Genet’s play TheMaids, and Federico Fellini’s film 8½. In the final phase of her artistic life, she devoted herself to writing and illustration, producing the artwork for the novels of many writers. § I N ADDITION TO THE S URREALIST PAINTERS , Fini befriended or worked with numerous others in a wide range of artistic en deavors. Indeed, the list of people she knew, collaborated with, or influenced artistically over the ensuing decades reads like an inventory of the European avant-garde thinkers and creative ge niuses of the mid-20th century: Jean Cocteau, Man Ray, Dora Maar, Anna Magnani, Albert Camus, Federico Fellini, Elsa Schiaparelli, and Jean Genet, to name but a few. She was also on good terms with American director John Huston, designing the costumes for his 1968 film A Walk with Love and Death. Some of the most famous photographers of the time, notably Henri Cartier-Bresson, did not conceal their desire to immor talize Fini. A woman of great beauty, she enthusiastically served as their model in provocative and erotic poses without appear ing shy or sexually insecure. In 1936, she posed in the nude for the famous gay New York fashion and celebrity photographer

George Platt Lynes. Faithful to her desire to be a work of art in her own right, she appeared often in elaborate costumes, adorned with feathers, jewelry, and furs, taking on the appear ance of a mythological goddess. Fini was proudly polyamorous. She once said: “Marriage never appealed to me. I’ve never lived with one person. Since I was eighteen, I’ve always preferred to live in a sort of commu nity. 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.” She also had many affairs with women, which continued during her long-term relationships with two men. While in her thirties, Fini entered into a scandalous ménage à trois with a Polish essayist, Konstanty Jele ń ski, and an Italian count, Stanis lao Lepri. On the upside, Lepri abandoned his fascist diplomatic

Léonor Fini, TwoWomen , 1939. Obelisk Art History.

career in Italy as a result of her influence and became a painter instead. And the cats? Fini and her two lovers stayed together in a Paris apartment that she remodeled and filled with her cats and artwork. She acquired 23 cats that would sometimes share her dining room table and sleep in her bed. Her beloved Persian cats appear frequently in her paintings. Cats seem to have been a kind of avatar of Fini herself. In a pansexual paradise of her own invention, Léonor Fini is the impresario, the set designer, and the costume designer. Saga cious, fierce, and beautiful female deities would reign supreme. As her consort, Fini’s ideal man is a natural androgyne, morph ing with the feminine. In such a place, Fini would surely wel come and celebrate all imaginable genders and consensual sexual and sensual possibilities.

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