Marino Marini
Pistoia (Italia), 1924
Marino Marini (27 February 1901 – 6 August 1980) was an Italian sculptor.
He attended the Accademia di Belli Arti in Florence in 1917. Although he never abandoned painting, Marini devoted himself primarily to sculpture from about 1922. From this time his work was influenced by Etruscan art and the sculpture of Arturo Martini. Marini succeeded Martini as professor at the Scuola d’Arte di Villa Reale in Monza, in 1929, a position he retained until 1940.
During this period, Marini traveled frequently to Paris, where he associated with Massimo Campigli, Giorgio de Chirico, and Alberto Magnelli. In 1936 he moved to Tenero-Locarno, in Switzerland; during the following few years the artist often visited Zürich and Basel, where he became a friend of Alberto Giacometti and Germaine Richier. In 1936, he received the Prize of the Quadriennale of Rome. He accepted a professorship in sculpture at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera, Milan, in 1940.
In 1943, he went into exile in Switzerland, exhibiting in Basel, Bern, and Zurich. In 1946, the artist settled permanently in Milan.
He participated in the ‘Twentieth-Century Italian Art’ show at the MoMA in New York. Curt Valentin began exhibiting Marini’s work at his Buchholz Gallery in New York in 1950, on which occasion the sculptor visited the city and met Jean Arp, Max Beckmann, Alexander Calder, Lyonel Feininger, and Jacques Lipchitz. On his return to Europe, he stopped in London, where the Hanover Gallery had organized a solo show of his work, and there met Henry Moore. He was awarded the Grand Prize for Sculpture at the Venice Biennale in 1952 and the Feltrinelli Prize in Rome in 1954.
His paintings were exhibited for the first time at Toninelli Arte Moderna in Milan in 1963–64.
His work may also be found in museums such as the Civic Gallery of Modern Art in Milan; the Tate Collection; the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice; and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, DC, USA, among others.
He developed several themes in sculpture: equestrian, Pomonas (nudes), portraits, and circus figures.
Marini is particularly famous for his series of stylised equestrian statues, which feature a man with outstretched arms on a horse.
Here you can see the artist's works that are part of the collection.
