As a child, from one day to the next, I discovered the appeal of masks and costumes. Dressing up is a way of experiencing a change of dimension, of species, of space. Costumes and cross-dressing are an act of creativity. And this applies to oneself, who becomes other characters or one's own character. It's a question of inventing oneself, of being moulted, of being apparently as changeable and multiple as one feels inside oneself. It's the externalization in excess of fantasies that we carry within ourselves, it's creative expression in its raw state”.
Leonor Fini
“She returns to a simpler, more rigorous construction of themes that are always very feminine, with a constant concern for the elegance of the characters and the strangeness of the encounters. More often than not, the characters seem to be performing a ritual. As Leonor Fini wrote in her notes on her painting: “A light from which we don't know where it comes from gives the ceremony a tone of inevitability that tends to imprison the moment. Gestures are performed with slowness by beings who seem to emerge from a dream or act like sleepwalkers. The colors are highly refined, sometimes in warm ranges close to those of Redon, sometimes in very light harmonies that give a cold aspect to the subjects treated, without losing the disturbance created by the relationship between the characters. The influence of the theater and the work she did there often explains the staging of Leonor Fini's paintings, as do the costumes of her characters, notably the extraordinary hats that sometimes crown nudes, sometimes young women dressed in precious fabrics.”
Eugénie de Keyser, “Leonor Fini”, Bulletin de la Classe des Beaux Arts, Tome 15, 2004, p.35
Léonor Fini (1907-1996)
Pour Sheridan le Fanu, 1974
Estimate : 100000 / 150000 €
