(Pistoia, Italy 1901 – Milán, Italy, 1980)
Together with Manzù, he is the great figurative sculptor of present-day Italy. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts of Florence. Professor since 1929, and since 1940 at the Brera in Milan. He won the Grand Prize for Sculpture at the II Quadrennial of Rome in 1935. Famous portrait painter, including portraits of Strawinski and Henry Miller. He had a great influence, not only in Italy, among sculptors, who wanted to be both avant-garde and traditional, but who rarely achieved his authenticity and power of synthesis.
“After 1930, when Henry Moore was already assimilating ancient pre-Columbian art in England, Marini moved from painting to sculpture, although without completely abandoning the former… He never abandoned colour; on the contrary, he had the courage to treat colour as an important element in his sculpture. What characterises Marini is the conditioning of his sculptural form to basic primitive motifs which in their form and content reflect a definite attitude towards life… Marini also shared the modern aim of creating a personal symbol of his time rather than an object of self-expression”. (A. M. Hammacher).