Marino Marini (Pistoia 1901 – Viareggio 1980)

It is significant that Marino Marini's debut, already on the eve of the First World War, took place in painting and drawing attending the courses of Galileo Chini at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence. Only in 1922 he enrolled in sculpture courses. Successor to Arturo Martini, he then held the chair of sculpture at the art school of Monza, from 1929 until 1940, when he became a professor at the Accademia di Brera, alternating teaching travel in France - the Paris meetings with De Chirico remain memorable , De Pisis, Campigli, Kandinsky, Tanguy, Maillol, Picasso, Braque, Gonzales, Laurens, Magnelli - in Germany, in Holland, in England, and multiple work experiences that obtain important awards. He won the first prize at the second Roman Quadriennale in 1935, where a room with six of his works is dedicated to him. Equally successful was obtained at the Venice Biennale in 1936 and at the Universal Exposition in Paris in 1937, where he won the Grand Prix; a wooden sculpture, The Boxer, enters the French national collections. In 1938 he married Mercedes Petrazzini who from then on he called "Marina", as if to underline the intense bond that will unite them for life. During the war years, spent in Switzerland, the meetings with Giacometti, Wotruba, Richier, Haller, Banninger are linked. Back in Italy in 1946 he settled in Milan and, in the summer, in Forte dei Marmi. The first direct transatlantic experience dates back to 1950, with a major exhibition at the Curt Valentin Gallery in New York. The meetings with Arp, Calder, Lipchitz, Beckmann, Feininger and the portrait of Igor Stravinsky date back to the American stay; but it is mainly due to the esteem and friendship of Valentin, a skilled and cultured merchant, the unanimous and intense international recognition for Marino's work. While in Italy the awards of the Venice Biennale, in 1952, and of the Accademia dei Lincei, in 1954, consolidate a position of absolute importance in contemporary art. In 1973 the museum named after Marino was inaugurated in Milan, at the Civic Gallery of Modern Art, a conspicuous collection of works of sculpture, painting, and graphics. In 1979 he inaugurated, in the town hall of Pistoia, a Documentation Center on the work of Marino Marini including a library and many sculptures including a Great Miracle. Marino Marini died on 6 August 1980 in Viareggio. In 1988 he opened the Marino Marini Museum in Florence, in the ancient church of San Pancrazio, with a donation of sculpture and painting works. In 1990 the Marino Marini Foundation was opened in the Palazzo del Tau in Pistoia, intended to ensure the conservation and dissemination of his work.

Long and assiduous is the attendance of the Guastalla Gallery with Marino, with whom he had established a relationship of work, friendship and attendance. Numerous exhibitions were held: in 1976 an exhibition of drawings published in the volume of his sister Egle Poetic comments inspired by Marino's works; in 1979 the important exhibition Unpublished paintings 1950/65; in 2002 Marino Marini sculptures, paintings, tempera and graphic works; in 2008 From color to form.