MARINO
MARINI
Marino Marini was born in Pistoia on February 27, 1901.
In 1917, he enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence, where he attended painting classes taught by Galileo Chini and sculpture classes by Domenico Trentacoste. The early years of his career were devoted to painting, drawing, and graphic arts. In 1926, he was living in Florence; the following year, in Monza, he met Arturo Martini, who two years later invited him to succeed him as a teacher at the I.S.I.A. (Higher Institute for Artistic Industries), located at the Royal Villa of Monza. In 1928, he took part in the exhibition of the “Novecento” group in Milan. In 1929, he stayed in Paris, where he had the opportunity to come into contact with De Pisis, Picasso, Maillol, Lipchitz, Braque, and Laurens. On the direct advice of Mario Tozzi, he sent his terracotta sculpture Popolo to the Exposition d’art italien moderne at the Bonaparte Gallery in Paris. He continued to exhibit with the “Novecento” group in Milan (1929), Nice (1929), Helsinki (1930), and Stockholm (1931).
His first solo exhibition was held in Milan in 1932; in 1935, he won the first prize for sculpture at the Rome Quadriennale. These were the years in which Marino focused his artistic research on two essential themes: the horseman and the pomona (a female figure symbolizing fertility).
In 1938, he married Mercedes Pedrazzini, affectionately nicknamed Marina, who would remain by his side throughout his life. In 1940, he left his teaching position in Monza to take up the chair of sculpture at the Brera Academy, which he held until 1943, when, due to the outbreak of the war, he took refuge in Switzerland.
During these years, he had the opportunity to associate with Wotruba, Germaine Richier, Giacometti, Haller, and Banninger, and to come into contact with the most advanced artistic movements in Europe. He exhibited in Basel, Bern, and Zurich.
After the war ended, Marino returned to Milan, reopened his studio, and resumed teaching at the Brera Academy.
In 1948, the Venice Biennale dedicated a solo room to him; he met Henry Moore, with whom he formed a particularly important friendship for his artistic development, and Curt Valentin, the art dealer who helped introduce him to the European and American markets.
During his stay in the United States, Marino met Arp, Feininger, Calder, Dalí, and Tanguy. Exhibitions and official international recognition increased, starting with his solo show in New York in 1950, the equestrian monument commissioned by the municipality of The Hague in 1958–59, and exhibitions in Zurich (1962), Rome (1966), and the traveling exhibition in Japan (1978).
From the 1970s onward, museum spaces dedicated to him began to take shape. In 1973, the Marino Marini Museum was inaugurated in the Modern Art Civic Gallery in Milan. In 1976, the Neue Pinakothek in Munich dedicated a permanent room to him. In 1979, the documentation center for Marino Marini’s work was opened in Pistoia, which in 1989 was moved to the restored Tau Convent.
Marino died in Viareggio in 1980. A few years later, in 1988, the Marino Marini Museum in Florence was inaugurated following a donation of works to the Tuscan capital, a city deeply loved by the artist.
