Leonor Fini Argentinian, 1907-1996
Portrait of Mrs. H I, 1942
Signed "Leonor Fini" lower right
Oil on canvas
22 x 18 inches
Fini’s Portrait of Mrs. Haseliter features an English former tennis champion and was painted during the artist’s time in Monaco, when she relied on the income obtained by painting portraits...
Fini’s Portrait of Mrs. Haseliter features an English former tennis champion and was painted during the artist’s time in Monaco, when she relied on the income obtained by painting portraits of the Monte Carlo elite. Of such commissioned portraits, Fini later said, “This did not appeal to me, but I had, alas, the gift of painting lifelike portraits, which does not always mean good paintings. My invented paintings were far more to my taste.” The painting of Mrs. Haseliter, however, skews more towards invention than likeness. Here the former athlete appears nude behind a bramble of leaves. Her hair transforms into feathers and the branches of the nearby plant encroach upon her body, leaving an imprint on her neck and chest. Picturing a hybrid state, a woman turning into plant and bird, this was a work that Fini kept in her own collection throughout her life, perhaps because its portrait sitter refused it.
--From the book Sphinx: The Life and Art of Leonor Fini, by Peter Webb, p. 104:
--From the book Sphinx: The Life and Art of Leonor Fini, by Peter Webb, p. 104:
Provenance
The artist's personal collectionGalerie Minsky, Paris
Weinstein Gallery, San Francisco
Exhibitions
Comune di Ferrara, Leonor Fini, Galleria civica d’Arte moderna, Palazzo dei Diamanti, July 2 – September 30, 1983, illustrated in catalogue no. 38, p. 122Paris, Les Somnambules, Galerie Dionne, March – June 1997, illustrated in catalogue p. 73
Bad Frankenhausen, Germany, Leonor Fini: Peintre du Fantastique, Panorama Museum, November 27, 1997 – March 1, 1998, illustrated in catalogue no. 6, p. 24
Trieste, Leonor Fini: L'Italienne de Paris, Museo Revoltella, July 4 - September 27, 2009, illustrated in catalogue p. 122
Umea, Sweden, Leonor Fini: Pourquoi Pas?, Bildmuseet, January 31 - May 11, 2014, illustrated in catalogue p. 70
New York, Leonor Fini: Theatre of Desire, 1930-1990, Museum of Sex, September 28, 2018 - March 4, 2019, illustrated in catalogue p. 22
Literature
Peter Webb, Sphinx: The Life and Art of Leonor Fini, New York: The Vendome Press, 2009, pp. 104. 106. Originally published in 2007 by Imprimerie Nationale Editions as Leonor Fini: Metamorphoses d'un art.Richard Overstreet & Neil Zukerman, Leonor Fini Catalog Raisonné of the Oil Paintings , vol. II, Zürich, 2021, no. 261, illustrated in color p. 310
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