Stanislao Lepri was born in Rome in 1905. He came from a conservative aristocratic family. This family heritage led him to follow the same path as his ancestors: a career in diplomacy. He became the Italian consul in Monaco, and later spent some time in Belgium. It was precisely this career choice that led him to meet, on a dance floor in Monte Carlo, the woman who would change his life: the captivating and intoxicating Leonor Fini, who encouraged him to paint and create.
Very quickly, he positioned himself as an artist inspired by Surrealism. Throughout his artistic career, he never forgot who had encouraged him to create and maintained a deep admiration for Leonor Fini. In 1946, they moved together to Paris, to Rue de Payenne, along with a third companion: Constantin Jelenski. That same year, he left the political world for good and began his career as an artist at the age of 37. He exhibited his works all over the world and collaborated with major figures in the art market such as Alexander Iolas and Jean Charpentier.
When creating, Stanislao Lepri drew his inspiration from the world of theater. Blending fantastical atmospheres, dreamlike worlds, macabre visions, and spirituality, his art aimed to be metaphysical—an invitation for the viewer to enter his personal visions and thoughts. At times melancholic, at times demonic, the creatures that take shape on his canvases ironically reflect the absurdity of the human condition. His personality was marked by a duality between his aristocratic heritage and his bohemian artistic life in Paris. Alongside his inner thoughts, Lepri was determined to highlight the distance he placed between himself and the constraints of the social class he came from. His art is, above all, an entry into a deeply personal metaphysical universe that transports us to another dimension—his own.
Additionally, like his life partner Leonor Fini, he dedicated himself to set design and costume creation for the theater. Productions such as L’Armida in Florence for the Maggio Fiorentino and Voyage to the States of the Moon by Savinien de Cyrano de Bergerac are among the most emblematic pieces to which he contributed in costume design. Beneath the apparent narrative of his paintings lie tensions and contradictions—it is the impossibility of the various elements in the composition to fully align that endlessly intrigues the viewer, much like a mythological story or a dream would.
Stanislao Lepri died in Paris in 1980. His works are now part of the collections of major museums around the world: MoMA, Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris, Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, National Gallery of Modern Art in Rome, and others.
