Histrionic, chameleonic and magnetically seductive: these adjectives deftly capture the essence of Leonor Fini, whose life played out as an endless masquerade of roles and fantasies. Amid the recent market surge in interest surrounding her work and uniquely idiosyncratic, multidisciplinary practice, Fini is often grouped with Latina Surrealists. Yet, despite being born in Buenos Aires, she was profoundly Italian in her innate sense of drama, in her disarming sensuality, in the mystery of her witch-like figures and in the refined literary and artistic references she drew from the classics—something finally being acknowledged in a major new survey at Palazzo Reale in Milan.
Titled “Io sono LEONOR FINI” (“I am LEONOR FINI”) and curated by Tere Arcq and Carlos Martín, the Milan exhibition turns its focus inward, centering on Fini herself as the source from which her enigmatic art radiates—an art that continues to captivate collectors and enthusiasts today. Featuring over 100 works across nine thematic sections, the show unpacks how Fini’s unorthodox and magnetic personality, along with her boundless imagination, manifested in a lifelong performance of roles both lived and painted. A quote from Fini herself gives the exhibition its name: “I am a painter. When people ask me how I do it, I reply: ‘I am,’” which distills the rebellious, independent spirit animating her entire creative trajectory. As Martín comments in a video, “She was fake as she was real—an example of how femininity is so complex that it cannot have a single definition.”
Shaping this mercurial persona was also the dramatic tale of her early years, when her Italian mother went to rocambolesque lengths to keep her from being taken back to Trieste by her Argentine father. To thwart his kidnapping attempts—twice—Malvina disguised young Leonor as a boy and changed her name. She was raised in Trieste, steeped in fin du siècle decadence and the intellectual circles her mother moved through, all under the lingering shadow of the Austro-Hungarian Empire’s faded grandeur. In 1931, she relocated to Paris and was quickly absorbed into the most vibrant creative circles, befriending Surrealist titans like André Breton and Salvador Dalí and encountering icons such as Christian Dior and Jean Cocteau. Just two years later, she returned to Milan, collaborated with Achille Funi at the Fifth Triennale, made her exhibition debut at the age of 22 and began showing at Galleria Milano. Around that time, Henri Cartier-Bresson photographed her in portraits that hinted at surrealist influence and doubled as declarations of her immersion in the cultural and artistic pulse of the era.
Fini was engaged with some of the most vital intellectual circles in Paris, Rome and Milan throughout her life. She also immersed herself in the worlds of cinema and theater as a costume and set designer, earning the admiration of legendary figures like Pier Paolo Pasolini. She collaborated with great directors, too, including Luchino Visconti and Federico Fellini—designing the costumes for 8½, though she was never credited for her work.
With her potent feminine presence, Fini was always a protagonist, never a muse. Her force of personality was so undeniable that Max Ernst famously dubbed her the “Italian Fury.” A rare video from Istituto Luce captures her in a characteristically witch-like guise, painting and seducing a man in a seaside tower near Rome, where she lived for a time. The figures she painted echo the mystery of that image—archetypes of wild feminine energy in all its varied incarnations. A recurring motif in Fini’s visual lexicon was the sphinx, a symbol that encapsulated her work and identity: a hybrid, mutant, powerful and mesmerizing creature. It became her signature avatar—an ambiguous being hovering between human and animal, man and woman, divine femininity and demonic presence—threading together myths, civilizations and symbols.
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At sixteen, an eye infection left her bandaged in darkness for two months. When her sight finally “awakened,” she committed to pursuing an artistic career—her blindness sharpened her inner vision, a key surrealist theme. Her paintings, rich in symbolic and epic resonance, reveal an alternate order of reality shaped by dreams, hallucinations and heightened states of consciousness. They channel the mystical and metaphorical self, peopled with sphinxes, cat-women and ambiguous men—figures that seem to drift across dimensions, as if Fini herself were merely a vessel for their passage. Masking, dressing and undressing identities became her lifelong performance, both on canvas and off. Fittingly, Jean Genet once accused her of withholding her true self as both a woman and an artist. “You seem to me on the edge of metamorphosis,” he wrote. “Stop the game of appearances: appear.”
Fini’s work charts a journey into the unconscious from the untamed vantage point of someone who believes in its primordial, organic power to endlessly construct new worlds—especially when liberated across artistic forms. Her ever-expanding, fiercely autonomous imagination resisted all labels, even that of Surrealism, evolving into a visual language that was profoundly original yet deeply rooted in cultural history and a universal symbolic and archetypal cosmos that spanned both past and present.
At the age of 12, Fini confessed to being fascinated by the dead. She would pore over obituaries, studying them with an intensity that hinted at her lifelong preoccupation with the liminal. Immobile naked men appear again and again in her work—ideal subjects through which she interrogated traditional gender dynamics, disrupting the gaze with a charged mix of desire, possession and contemplation. Throughout her oeuvre, Fini grapples with timeless archetypes, constructing a personal lexicon of metaphors and allegories. Drawing from myth, literature and a reservoir of primordial imagery, her figures function as filters of memory and experience—avatars from the collective unconscious reimagined through the lens of experience and memory.
As the selection of works in the show makes clear, her practice oscillated between decadent romanticism and modern symbolism. It embodies the tension between surrendering to the dark pull of another world and gravitating toward its erotic counterforce—sensuality, vitality and desire. The uneasiness and dramatic tension that pulses through her work reveal Fini’s difficulty in adapting to the boundaries imposed by the world around her—boundaries she could never fully accept. Her imagination was simply too vast, constantly fed by the energy of encounters, the friction of intellectual exchange and the breath of a life lived in dialogue with the most vital currents of her time. In that way, Fini’s work both stands as a testament to an entire era and gestures toward something larger: the universality of a symbolic life that stretches and expands existence beyond its fleeting physical and sensory dimensions.
The evolution of Leonor Fini’s market
Unsurprisingly, Fini’s work has undergone a significant market rediscovery—one that reflects our own turbulent era, in which the imaginary and fantastical offer a seductive form of escape. Frequently associated with today’s other market darling, Leonora Carrington, Fini was not just a peer but a friend. Despite their ten-year age difference, the two artists shared a mutual admiration and a lasting bond.
Like Carrington, Fini has seen a notable rise in recognition and value in the auction market. Her inclusion in the 2022 Venice Biennale, The Milk of Dreams, catalyzed renewed interest in her work, contributing to a broader reappraisal that also encompassed Carrington. In the same Sotheby’s evening auction that saw Carrington’s record-breaking $28.5 million sale, Fini’s Les Stylites (The Stylists) sold for $720,000, surpassing its high estimate of $600,000. That painting previously fetched just $129,512 at Sotheby’s in 2007—a clear indicator of the rapid and dramatic growth in her market value. Fini’s current auction record stands at $2,319,000 for her self-portrait Autoportrait au Scorpion, sold at Sotheby’s in 2021.
Instrumental in Fini’s market resurgence was the work of Kasmin Gallery, which in the following year mounted the revelatory solo exhibition “Leonor Fini: Metamorphosis.” The show marked the first time the richness of her phantasmagorical universe—expressed through a singularly idiosyncratic blend of paintings, drawings, sculpture and costume—was presented in such depth to the American market.
To better understand the mechanics behind this renewed attention, Observer spoke with Emma Bowen, sales director at Kasmin. Bowen traces her introduction to Fini back to the 2018-19 exhibition “Leonor Fini: Theater of Desire, 1930–1990” at the Museum of Sex, which was curated by Lissa Rivera—who, as it happens, had once been a student of Bowen’s father at New York’s SVA. “In fact, it’s possible my dad was the one who suggested I see the show,” she said.
It was Bowen who first contacted Fini’s estate, which is now overseen by Arlette Souhami of Galerie Minsky and Richard Overstreet, the executor. “Arlette and Richard know Leonor’s work better than anyone,” Bowen said, adding that both were close to Fini during her lifetime—Souhami as her dealer and Overstreet as the author of the Leonor Fini catalogue raisonné. He continues to shape new scholarship around her work and legacy.
“My first correspondence with Arlette was over email just before the pandemic, when I reached out about borrowing a Fini for a group exhibition at the gallery,” Bowen said. “She was immediately receptive and enthusiastic about working together, given Kasmin’s history of mounting major historical exhibitions featuring artists in Leonor’s circle, such as Max Ernst, as well as our show on the late surrealist dealer Alexander Iolas.”
Kasmin Gallery first introduced Fini’s work to its audience in the 2022 group exhibition “Dissolving Realms,” curated by Katy Hessel. The show gathered work by artists spanning more than 70 years in a tightly focused survey of painterly investigations into the limits of representation, reflecting on how the legacies of 20th-century artists continue to shape contemporary practice. “Contextualizing Fini’s work alongside historical figures like Frankenthaler, Carrington and Krasner, as well as contemporary painters such as Flora Yukhnovich and Louise Giovanelli, was a great way to introduce Fini to the U.S. market,” said Bowen.
It was during her next visit to Paris that Bowen met with Souhami at her gallery. That conversation sparked the idea for a solo exhibition of Leonor’s work at Kasmin Gallery, which quickly gained momentum. “I feel incredibly lucky to have had the opportunity to collaborate with them on the exhibition we then staged in New York in 2023.” Since that debut, the gallery has continued to present Fini’s work at major international art fairs in Mexico, London and the U.S.
Commenting on the current surge in market attention, Bowen confirms that demand for Fini remains strong—particularly for major paintings, which routinely exceed high estimates at auction. “Her 1978 painting Rogomelec sold well above estimate in October of last year,” she noted, referring to the November result. “We continue to see strong interest from young collectors, especially in Fini’s works on paper, as they offer an accessible price point for truly excellent material—it’s like acquiring a little piece of history.”
“Io sono LEONOR FINI” is on view at Palazzo Reale in Milan through June 22, 2025.
