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Leonor Fini Portrait Drawings and Watercolors

French, 1908-1996

Leonor Fini was the life of the party during the French Surrealist movement. A socialite with connections to some of the movement's biggest names, Fini was also an astoundingly gifted artist in her own right. In fact, many consider her to be the most fiercely independent female artist of the 20th century. A theatrical personality, Fini created prints, paintings and drawings that are widely revered for their sensuous qualities and raw energy.

Fini's life started off in a dramatic fashion, which was perhaps a portent of things to come. She was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1907, but her parents separated soon after and her mother took her away to Trieste, Italy. Due to her father's attempts to kidnap her, Fini was often dressed as a boy throughout her childhood. 

Fini was surrounded by artistic women in Trieste, and she naturally developed a love for art as well. By the time she was 17, she had become familiar with Renaissance art and Mannerist painting and was exhibiting her own portraits. In 1931, at just 24 years of age, Fini moved to Paris and became acquainted with influential artists Giorgio de Chirico and Carlos Carrà. She also met and started a romantic relationship with Surrealist pioneer Max Ernst, who introduced her to others in the movement.

Though she had no formal art education, Fini proved herself to be both technically masterful and creatively exceptional. Her work and her flamboyant personality attracted the attention of many of the 20th century's most celebrated artists and thinkers, including Salvador Dalí, Jean Cocteau, Albert Camus and Jean Genet, just to name a very few. She exhibited her work in many Parisian art galleries, including the gallery of Christian Dior before the fashion icon became a designer.

In the 1950s, Fini continued painting while immersing herself in other artistic and dramatic endeavors, including theater costume and mask design. She also designed posters for the Paris Opera and wardrobes for movies.

Fini continued living and painting in Paris for the rest of her life. She died in 1996.

On 1stDibs, find original Leonor Fini prints, paintings and drawings.

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Artist: Leonor Fini
Face and Flowers
By Leonor Fini
Located in Columbia, MO
Leonor Fini was born in Argentina in 1907 but travelled and lived in Europe with her mother from a young age. By 1931, she was in Paris, in the full swing of the Surrealist movement....
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20th Century Surrealist Leonor Fini Portrait Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Etching

Sorcière - Ink on Paper Unique Signed Drawing Surrealist Woman Painter, c. 1960
By Leonor Fini
Located in New York, NY
Leonor Fini La Sorcière, ca. 1960 Ink on paper 21 x 15.5 cm 8 1/4 x 5 7/8 in. 41.5 x 36 cm 16 1/8 x 14 1/8 in. (Frame included) Unique work Exhibition History: Leonor Fini: Small ...
Category

1960s Surrealist Leonor Fini Portrait Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Ink

"Double Portraits" Surrealist Lithograph by Leonor Fini
By Leonor Fini
Located in Pasadena, CA
Leonor Fini defies notions of time and space, inviting us to contemplate existence and its mysteries. The artist has been painting all her life. She is distinguished by a surreal and...
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1960s Surrealist Leonor Fini Portrait Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Lithograph

Character - Ink on Paper Unique Signed Drawing Surrealist Woman Painter, c. 1960
By Leonor Fini
Located in New York, NY
Leonor Fini Character, ca. 1960 Ink on paper 14 x 11 cm 5 1/2 x 4 1/3 in. 29 x 26 cm 11 1/2 x 10 1/4 in. (Frame included) Unique work Exhibition history: Leonor Fini: Small Faces,...
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1960s Surrealist Leonor Fini Portrait Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Ink

Portrait - Ink on Paper Unique Signed Drawing Surrealist Woman Painter, c. 1960
By Leonor Fini
Located in New York, NY
Leonor Fini Portrait, ca. 1960 Ink on paper 14.5 x 10 cm 5 1/2 x 4 in. 37.5 x 33 cm 14 1/2 x 13 in. (Frame included) Unique work Exhibition history: Leonor Fini: Small Faces, Apri...
Category

1960s Surrealist Leonor Fini Portrait Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Ink, Graphite

Face - Ink on Paper Unique Signed Drawing Surrealist Woman Painter, c. 1960
By Leonor Fini
Located in New York, NY
Leonor Fini Face, ca. 1960 Ink on paper 9 x 11 cm 3 1/2 x 4 1/3 in. 28 x 30 cm 11 x 11 7/8 in. (Frame included) Unique work Exhibition History: Leonor Fini: Small Faces, April 7 -...
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1960s Surrealist Leonor Fini Portrait Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Ink

Face II - Ink on Paper Unique Signed Drawing Surrealist Woman Painter, c. 1960
By Leonor Fini
Located in New York, NY
Leonor Fini Face II, ca. 1960 Ink on paper 11 x 8.5 cm 4 1/3 x 3 1/8 in. 23 x 20 cm 9 x 7 7/8 in. (Frame included) Unique work Exhibition History: Leonor Fini: Small Faces, April ...
Category

1960s Surrealist Leonor Fini Portrait Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Ink

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Tippie Comic Strip Original Art - Female Cartoonist
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An early example from pioneering Female Cartoonist/ Illustrator Edwina Dumm, who draws a comic strip from her long-running cartoon series Tippie which lasted for almost five decades. Signed and dated Edwina, 9-25, matted but unframed. Frances Edwina Dumm (1893 – April 28, 1990) was a writer-artist who drew the comic strip Cap Stubbs and Tippie for nearly five decades; she is also notable as America's first full-time female editorial cartoonist. She used her middle name for the signature on her comic strip, signed simply Edwina. Biography One of the earliest female syndicated cartoonists, Dumm was born in Upper Sandusky, Ohio, and lived in Marion and Washington Courthouse, Ohio throughout her youth before the family settled down in Columbus.[1] Her mother was Anna Gilmore Dennis, and her father, Frank Edwin Dumm, was an actor-playwright turned newspaperman. Dumm's paternal grandfather, Robert D. Dumm, owned a newspaper in Upper Sandusky which Frank Dumm later inherited. Her brother, Robert Dennis Dumm, was a reporter for the Columbus Dispatch, and art editor for Cole Publishing Company's Farm & Fireside magazine. In 1911, she graduated from Central High School in Columbus, Ohio, and then took the Cleveland-based Landon School of Illustration and Cartooning correspondence course. Her name was later featured in Landon's advertisements. While enrolled in the correspondence course, she also took a business course and worked as a stenographer at the Columbus Board of Education. In 1915, Dumm was hired by the short-lived Republican newspaper, the Columbus Monitor, to be a full-time cartoonist.[2] Her first cartoon was published on August 7, 1915, in the debut issue of the paper. During her years at the Monitor she provided a variety of features including a comic strip called The Meanderings of Minnie about a young tomboy girl and her dog, Lillie Jane, and a full-page editorial cartoon feature, Spot-Light Sketches[3]. She drew editorial cartoons for the Monitor from its first edition (August 7, 1915) until the paper folded (July 1917). In the Monitor, her Spot-Light Sketches was a full-page feature of editorial cartoons, and some of these promoted women's issues. Elisabeth Israels Perry, in the introduction to Alice Sheppard's Cartooning for Suffrage (1994), wrote that artists such as Blanche Ames Ames, Lou Rogers and Edwina Dumm produced: ...a visual rhetoric that helped create a climate more favorable to change in America's gender relations... By the close of the suffrage campaign, women's art reflected the new values of feminism, broadened its targets, and attempted to restate the significance of the movement.[4] After the Monitor folded, Dumm moved to New York City, where she continued her art studies at the Art Students League. She was hired by the George Matthew Adams Service[5] to create Cap Stubbs and Tippie, a family strip following the lives of a boy Cap, his dog Tippie, their family, and neighbors. Cap's grandmother, Sara Bailey, is prominently featured, and may have been based on Dumm's own grandmother, Sarah Jane Henderson, who lived with their family. The strip was strongly influenced by Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, as well as Dumm’s favorite comic, Buster Brown by Richard F. Outcault. Dumm worked very fast; according to comics historian Martin Sheridan, she could pencil a daily strip in an hour.[6] Her love of dogs is evident in her strips as well as her illustrations for books and magazines, such as Sinbad, her weekly dog page which ran in both Life and the London Tatler. She illustrated Alexander Woollcott's Two Gentlemen and a Lady. For Sonnets from the Pekinese and Other Doggerel (Macmillan, 1936) by Burges Johnson (1877–1963), she illustrated "Losted" and other poems. From the 1931 through the 1960s, she drew another dog for the newspaper feature Alec the Great, in which she illustrated verses written by her brother, Robert Dennis Dumm. Their collaboration was published as a book in 1946. In the late 1940s, she drew the covers for sheet music by her friend and neighbor, Helen Thomas, who did both music and lyrics. During the 1940s, she also contributed Tippie features to various comic books including All-American Comics and Dell Comics. In 1950, Dumm, Hilda Terry, and Barbara Shermund...
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Carmilla by Leonor Fini - Lithograph 31x35 cm
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Located in Geneva, CH
Edition 126 of 297 1 copy Work on paper Light brown wooden frame with glass pane 68 x 55 x 1,5 cm Leonor Fini, pseudonym of Eleonor Fini, born in Buenos Aires (Argentina) on August ...
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Girl’s face
By Leonor Fini
Located in London, GB
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Girl’s face
Girl’s face
H 15.6 in W 12.72 in

Leonor Fini portrait drawings and watercolors for sale on 1stDibs.

Find a wide variety of authentic Leonor Fini portrait drawings and watercolors available for sale on 1stDibs. You can also browse by medium to find art by Leonor Fini in lithograph and more. Not every interior allows for large Leonor Fini portrait drawings and watercolors, so small editions measuring 13 inches across are available. Leonor Fini portrait drawings and watercolors prices can differ depending upon medium, time period and other attributes. On 1stDibs, the price for these items starts at $1,500 and tops out at $1,500, while the average work can sell for $1,500.
Questions About Leonor Fini Portrait Drawings and Watercolors
  • 1stDibs ExpertAugust 29, 2024
    Yes, Leonor Fini was a Surrealist. Though she had no formal art education, Fini proved to be both technically masterful and creatively exceptional. Her work and her flamboyant personality attracted the attention of many of the 20th century's most celebrated artists and thinkers, including Salvador Dalí, Jean Cocteau, Albert Camus and Jean Genet. She exhibited her work in many Parisian art galleries, including the gallery of Christian Dior, before the fashion icon became a designer. On 1stDibs, explore a variety of Leonor Fini art.

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