LEONOR FINI (1907-1996)

The world of the reluctant Surrealist Leonor Fini has been described as ‘the domain of sleepwalkers... of glazed gazes, of an exaggerated dimension of reality where irrepressible hallucinations exist’ (T. Villani, Parcours dans l'œuvre de Leonor Fini, translated by Jean-Claude Dedieu, 1989, p. 48). Known for her enigmatic subversions of traditional portrayals of women, the present late painting by Fini deviates from her earlier focus on Mannerist elongation and overt Surrealist imagery to create a liminal, atmospheric dreamscape. A lone silhouette of a young woman emerges from the luminous mist in a nondescript urban space. In the foreground, a barely-lit face fixes the viewer with an expressionless gaze. The blackness of the looming awning breaks the dim light emerging from the mist, contrasted sharply against the softly rendered, hazy surroundings, and the scene is permeated by a sense of restlessness. The ambiguous scene unfolding is suffused with the quality of a memory or a dream, left to be related to by the viewer.