At the end of the 1960s, Leonor Fini moved towards a lighter colour palette and began to draw on a Symbolist aesthetic. Revealing a new side to her work, she associated the naked body with self-empowerment.

The human body as an expression of identity, eroticism, and power recurs throughout Leonor Fini’s work. Yet the artist is very versatile in the way she presents these bodies. The main figure in ‘The Shackles’, a naked woman, rather than being vulnerable without her clothes, appears particularly powerful and self-confident. Unlike her two clothed female counterparts, she has freed herself from her restraints, while the other two appear to be standing in a pillory, frozen in submissive poses. In ‘The Botany Lesson’, the nude figure dominates the scene by appearing as the knowledgeable one who passes on her knowledge to a much frailer and seemingly trapped figure.

In addition to the erotic component typical of Fini, the painting testifies to her broad literary knowledge and comprehensive education in the humanities. In keeping with the Surrealists, she refers here to the psychoanalysis of Freud and Jung: while Sigmund Freud used the myth of Narcissus as a literary framework for understanding self-love as a significant phase of human development, Carl Gustav Jung, by contrast, saw the reflection as a symbol of the unconscious psyche, in which falling in love with one’s own image represents the danger of being swallowed up by the unconscious self.

Two young women, exhausted, have fallen asleep and are dreaming on a night train. Their light clothing suggests a sultry summer night. The delicate, opulent forms of this scene and the women’s clothing recall Art Deco motifs of the 1920s.

A number of Fini’s paintings unfold as seemingly intimate theatrical spaces where the hidden is made visible. The artist’s fascination with masquerade led her beyond painting into theatre, opera, ballet, and film. She developed visual worlds with a distinct theatrical character, incorporated cinematic influences, and designed masks and costumes.

Paris remained the centre of Leonor Fini’s life for six decades, from her arrival in 1931 until her death in 1996. In Paris, Fini often went to the cinema, to premieres on the Champs-Élysées, to classic films at the Cinémathèque, and to tiny cinemas tucked away on the Rive Gauche. Thanks to her passion for film and her excellent memory, she knew the names and filmographies of numerous actors by heart. She would sometimes incorporate memories of specific scenes and camera angles into her paintings.
Thus, the silhouettes behind a curtain in ‘Beyond the Dream’ reproduce a scene from the silent film ‘Greed’ (1924) by the Austrian American film director, screenwriter, and actor Erich von Stroheim. Stroheim worked with strong contrasts of light and dark. In some scenes, figures appear as nothing more than dark outlines, while other areas of the frame are highlighted by light. Fini also draws on this visual language.

Throughout her long career, Fini was fascinated by the play of masks. The interplay between concealment and revelation remained a central feature of her work across various media – from painting and drawing to stage design, book illustration, and her work as a mask and costume designer. Through her costumed appearances, she empowered herself to assume different roles and continually reinvent her own image. In Paris, Fini was able to indulge her passion for wearing masks and costumes at lavish banquets and numerous costume balls. In this way, she established herself as a mysterious and extravagant icon and received numerous commissions for stage sets and costumes. The mask thus became an important expression of her (artistic) identity.

As early as the 1950s, and increasingly during the 1960s, Leonor Fini regularly designed costumes and stage sets for a variety of productions, primarily in Parisian theatres, but also in Venice, Rome, and Milan. Among her major works are the set and costumes for a 1963 production of Richard Wagner’s ‘Tannhäuser’ at the Théâtre National de l’Opéra in Paris, for which she created a series of elaborate costumes.