Stanislao Lepri was born into a family of the so-called “black (papal) nobility” in Rome in 1905, pursuing a diplomatic career in line with the family tradition and being appointed to the post of Italian Consul first in Montecarlo and then in Brussels.

He met Italo-Argentine painter Leonor Fini in Montecarlo in 1942, forming a couple with her, and she encouraged him to cultivate his passion for painting.

The two lived together in Rome during World War II, moving to Paris in 1946 where they shared a flat on the Rue Payenne. It was there that Lepri decided to quit politics and to become a full-time painter.

When Fini met a Polish man of letters named Costantin Jelenski in 1952, the three embarked on a “ménage à trois”, flying in the face of all social convention, and it was to last for the rest of their lives. In the course of his career as a painter, Lepri showed his work in Europe, in New York and in Cairo, working with gallery owners of the calibre of Alexander Iolas and Jean Charpentier.

In Europe, his work is to be found in the collections of the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville in Paris, the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna in Rome and the Muzeum Sztuki in Łódź, in Poland. In the United States, one of his works, Banquet painted in 1945, was donated to the MoMa in New York by the De Menil family and was included in the famous exhibition on 20th Century Italian Art held in the museum from 28 June to 18 September 1949.

Stanislao Lepri breathes life into a magical, bizarre, metaphysical world in his work. His paintings speak of human emotions, of hidden fears and desires, with cutting irony. They are inhabited by skeletons, hooded figures, huge cats, monstrous beasts and naked puttini of Renaissance inspiration, that can all be as much part of a dream as they can of a nightmare.