Leonor Fini, Le Rêve de Léonor (The Dream of Leonor), 1949

This is a double-sided drawing by the great Surrealist Leonor Fini. It is a study for a costume design for two characters in the ballet Le Rêve de Léonor, translating to “the dream of Leonor.”

The ballet premiered at London’s Royal Opera House in 1949. It was inspired by a dream Fini had and was a highly imaginative production.

Set to music by Benjamin Britten, with choreography by Sir Frederick Ashton — who was known for Cinderella and Fini’s favorite, the Tales of Beatrix Potter — the ballet follows the story of a young bald girl who chases a beautiful blond wig.

Set in a nocturnal landscape, with monsters and dragons, the story goes that the bald girl chasing the wig was captured by “voluptuous and mocking figures covered with long hair.” I wonder if this could be the character on the left…

Sent by a pomegranate to the Underworld, where she is tempted by gluttony in the form of King Nougat and his whipped creams, the girl dreams she has become a white owl and plays with beautiful feathered beings. Then dawn arrives and she awakes…

Leonor Fini had a penchant for the fantastical. Born in Argentina in 1907, as a child she fled to Italy with her mother to escape her domineering Catholic father. After suffering from conjunctivitis, she had her eyes bandaged for months. According to her, this let her look deep inside her imagination.

Exposed to books and Renaissance art, she taught herself to paint, and landed in Paris in the 1920s, where she mixed with the Surrealists. She has been described by art historian Whitney Chadwick as “tall and striking, with jet-black hair and piercing eyes … possessing a strange combination of feline grace.” Qualities, which I think, are evident in these characters.

The purpose for this study is one of function: to show the dancers how they can embody the personality of their characters. On the front side, we see figures dancing en pointe, and on the reverse we see the story play out: the bald girl chasing that beautiful blond wig…

Dance and theater is steeped in the history of the Legion of Honor. When the museum was established in 1924, cofounder Alma Spreckles — a huge fan of music and ballet — began a collection focusing on drawings of costumes and set designs, which the museum continues to pursue. This history is something to keep in mind when looking around the museum.

Functional and full of imagination, for me, this drawing captures the spirit of Fini, an artist who spanned artforms, defied genres, and was constantly pushing the boundaries of art — translating the worlds that exist deep in our head!