Miracolo at the Middelheim Museum

myminifactory

Marino Marini was born on February 27, 1901, and died on August 6, 1980. He was an Italian sculptor who attended the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence in 1917. Although he never stopped painting, Marini focused primarily on sculpture from around 1922. From this point forward, his work was influenced by Etruscan art and the sculpture of Arturo Martini. Marini took over as professor at the Scuola d'Arte di Villa Reale in Monza near Milan in 1929, a position he held until 1940. During this period, Marini frequently traveled to Paris where he associated with Massimo Campigli, Giorgio de Chirico, Alberto Magnelli, and Filippo Tibertelli de Pisis. In 1936, Marini moved to Tenero-Locarno in Ticino Canton Switzerland; during the next few years, the artist often visited Zürich and Basel where he became friends with Alberto Giacometti, Germaine Richier, and Fritz Wotruba. In 1936, he received the Prize of the Quadriennale of Rome. In 1938, Marini married Mercedes Pedrazzini. 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 Zürich. In 1946, the artist settled permanently in Milan. He is buried at Cimitero Comunale of Pistoia Toscana Italy. He participated at the 'Twentieth-Century Italian Art' show at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1944. 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. 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 Zürich 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 in the former church of San Pancrazio. His work can also be found in museums such as the Civic Gallery of Modern Art in Milan the Tate Collection The Angel of the City at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection Venice the Norton Simon Museum and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington D.C. Marini 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. The horse and rider theme evolved over time it first appeared in 1936 as poised and formal figures in 1940 the forms became more abstract proportions changed. After the war the horses are posed standing straining and a rider with outstretched arms.