MARINO MARINI (1901-1980)

Marino Marini was an Italian Expressionist sculptor, painter and graphic artist. He was instrumental in the revival of the art of portrait sculpture in Italy during the first half of the 20th century and particularly famous for his series of stylized equestrian statues that feature a man on a horse with arms outstretched.

Marini studied painting and sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence and although he never abandoned painting, he devoted himself primarily to sculpture from about 1922. He consistently refined two major images, the female nude and the horse and rider. His sensitivity to form and surface owes much to the influence of Etruscan and Roman art, while the inner tension of his work reflects German Gothic sculpture. In 1946 the artist settled permanently in Milan and participated in Twentieth Century Italian Art at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1944 and exhibiting at Buchholz Gallery in New York in 1950. In 1951 a Marini exhibition traveled from the Kestner-Gesellschaft Hannover to the Kunstverein in Hamburg and the Haus der Kunst of Munich. He was awarded the Grand Prize for Sculpture at the Venice Biennale in 1952 and the Feltrinelli Prize at the Accademia dei Lincei in Rome in 1954. One of his monumental sculptures was installed in the Hague in 1959.

Retrospectives of Marini's work took place at the Kunsthaus Zu¨rich in 1962 and at the Palazzo Venezia in Rome in 1966. His paintings were exhibited for the first time at Toninelli Arte Moderna in Milan in 1963-64. In 1973 a permanent installation of his work opened at the Galleria d'Arte Moderna in Milan, and in 1978 a Marini show was presented at the National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo. There is a museum dedicated to his work in Florence; his work may also be found in museums in Italy and around the world, such as the Civica Galleria d'Arte Moderna in Milan and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C. Marini’s work is authenticated
by the experts at the Marino Marini Foundation in Pistoia, Italy.