Leonor Fini was the queen of Parisian bohemian life, constantly appearing in newspapers for her paintings, illustrations and plays, but also for her lifestyle.

Born in Buenos Aires (1907), she grew up in Trieste, Italy. Her mother was Italian, she married a wealthy businessman and went with him to Buenos Aires, but he, as a member of the Zilot sect, sought to live in poverty. The mother and little Leonor went back to the parents' house in Trieste, the father Erminio even tried to kidnap the girl, so she spent a period of her childhood disguised as a boy when she left home. This disguise left a deep mark on Leonor and later played a significant role in her life.

As a child she researched the attitude towards death

As a girl she knew that she wanted to do art. Due to her indecent behavior, she was expelled from three schools, but she also wanted to draw. According to her, as a child she researched the attitude towards death and went to the morgue to observe the bodies. She imprinted those strange interests in her mind, managing to create an emotional distance and looking at it through her own aesthetics, building an iconography that follows her throughout the creative path.

At the age of 17 she went to study in Milan, but at that time the center of her artistic life was Paris. She fell in love with the Italian prince Lorenzo and soon joined him in Paris with the intention of marrying him. Because the love story between them did not have a happy ending, Leonor stayed in Paris, and Lorenzo, as a bachelor, returned to Milan.

As an ambitious 24-year-old girl, she wasted no time. She soon entered the Parisian circle of artists, and talented to make friends, beautiful and cozy, smart and warm, she became an inevitable guest at parties and private exhibitions in the Parisian circle. She was friends with Elias, Picasso, Ernst, Cartier, Bresson and Dali.

She created art, but she was also art

She held her first exhibition in a gallery run by Christian Dior, before reorienting herself to fashion. The critics accepted this and her subsequent exhibitions well. Friendships helped her a lot in building her career. Max Ernst, with whom she was in a love affair, introduced her to Andre Breton and other Surrealists.

Due to disagreements with Breton, who was also known as a feminist, she did not become a member of his group, but participated in his exhibitions. Two of her paintings in 1936 were displayed at the Surrealist Exhibition in London (1936), and immediately caused a scandal. The pictures show young women in a bizarre and semi-erotic ritual. In Paris, Leonor Finney had a better critique and audience.

In 1942 she painted a naked man, which is also the first such act painted by a woman. And in real life, Leonor crossed boundaries. She said that she almost never lived with only one person and that she preferred a kind of commune, in her home full of cats, who were also obsessed with her, and in the company of her friends, a man who was more of a lover and a second who he was more of a friend to her.

After the war she lived with two Italian aristocrats and 17 cats in a palace in which she created a slightly creepy atmosphere, with draperies, skeletons, dolls, oriental rugs and theatrical costumes she created. She also dressed herself unusually, or very comfortably, with her hair raised or parted. She created art, but she was also art.

She knew how to attract attention wherever she appeared, even by dyeing her hair blue, green, gold, or by appearing at a party wearing only white feathers and boots.

After the war in Paris, it was fashionable to make masquerades, in which Leonor Finney was an element. Each time she appeared at a masquerade in a unique costume, she was photographed for both magazines and front pages. It also brought her new engagements for theatrical costumes. But above all, Finney saw herself as an artist. She painted dreams and surrealist worlds, claiming that dreams were her main source of inspiration.

During her life she achieved great international success, exhibited all over the world, and after her death she was a bit forgotten and left aside. She died in Paris in 1996.