Becoming Leonor Fini: Theatrical Self-Performances between Art and Life

(Hardback)

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Italian-Argentine artist Leonor Fini (1907-1996) can be seen as the original artist-celebrity; her self-mythologization was promulgated by some of the 20th centurys most prominent photographers, from Henri Cartier-Bresson to Dora Maar. Exploring her self-fashioning and dressing-up practices in light of recent theories of performativity, this book highlights how Finis extension of artistic creative practices, from painted artworks to her self-creation through costumes, masks and fashion, allowed her to become a living artwork to be created and recreated on daily basis. Applying a multisensory methodology, the book explores Finis personal theatricality, photographic self-portraits and self-transformative, genderbending, transgressive dressing-up games in relation to surrealist practices, showcasing the hybrid identities that made up Fini's overall character. In three thematic sections - exploring her theatrical performances at balls, her self-fashioning in photographic and painted portraits, and her becoming-other through dressing-up - the book charts the artist's personal and creative development, the interaction between her paintings and self-creation and her increasing self-empowerment through dressing-up. With over 100 visually-striking colour illustrations, the book analyses and highlights some of Fini's most outstanding performances together with her paintings and self-portraits. Kollnitz argues that the way these identities were represented in the celebrity press compromised Finis critical reception as an artist, and how more broadly patriarchal objectification of fashionable women artists has the potential to jeopardise their professional agency. In contrast, this book showcases Finis self-fashioning as a tool of artistic and personal empowerment as well as an intrinsic part of her art production. In doing so, the book gives voice to the significance of self-mythologisation for artists to whom identity is fluid and plural.

Author Bio

Andrea Kollnitz is professor of Art History and head of the Art History Department, Stockholm University, Sweden. Her current research is focused on the self-fashioning of the avant-garde artist; transnational perspectives on Nordic avant-garde art, fashion photography and caricature. She is co-editor, with Marco Pecorari, of Fashion, Performance and Performativity (2021), and, with Louise Wallenberg, of Fashion and Modernism (2018).