Leonor Fini: Menagerie

Olney Gleason is pleased to present an exhibition of paintings and works on paper by Leonor Fini (1907–1996). On view from April 2 through May 2, 2026, Leonor Fini: Menagerie brings together a selection of work spanning the genres of portraiture, literary and erotic drawings, and original set and costume designs. The exhibition anticipates a major retrospective organized by the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt in October 2026 that will travel to the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris in 2027.

 

Fini approached the figure through sustained observation, moving between commissioned portraiture, literary illustration, and her own mythological and erotic compositions. Several of the paintings on view date to the 1930s and 1940s, a period in which Fini’s handling of oil paint drew from the Old Masters she had studied in her youth in Trieste. The earliest painting on view, the little-seen Portrait de Victoria Pini (1936), represents Fini’s success as a portraitist after moving to Paris in the 1930s. Painted as Fini garnered recognition for her commissions by Parisian high society, this painting dates to a period that birthed Fini’s signature portrait style, and it further marks a rare instance in which the artist created a portrait at her own volition

 

A group of works from 1986 relate to Fini’s illustrations for a deluxe edition of Baudelaire’s Oeuvres complètes, published by Éditions André Sauret, Monaco. Executed in oil on paper, these small-scale paintings revisit the theatrical figuration that occupied Fini throughout her career. The subjects – cloaked performers, nocturnal gatherings, solitary women – are treated with an intensity suited to the scale of the page. Other paintings and works on paper on view reflect Fini’s fascination with witches, who recur in her paintings and drawings across decades. Ink drawings dating from the 1950s through the 1980s extend this interest in the figure through fluid, economical line. Working in ink, wash, and watercolor, Fini rendered groups of women, mythological scenes, and erotic subjects with a draftsmanship shaped by decades of sustained figural practice.

 

Also on view will be a selection of set and costume designs for stage productions including Jean Anouilh’s Les Demoiselles de la nuit (1948) and the artist’s own La Rêve de Leonor (1949). After World War II, while continuing to paint, Fini designed costumes and sets for theater, ballet, and film. These designs reflect the inventive spirit of an artist whose creativity converged at the boundary between art and life.