Marino Marini

Lucy Rudolph, Zurich
Galerie Vömel, Düsseldorf
Schwarzfurt Collection, Munich
Acquired from the above by the present owner in 2002

Arles, Musée Réattu et Espace Van Gogh, Marino Marini - sculptures et dessins, 1995, no. 18

Helmut Lederer & Eduard Trier, The Sculpture of Marino Marini, London & Stuttgart, 1961, illustration of another cast pp. 20-21
Patrick Waldberg, Herbert Read & Gualtieri di San Lazzaro, Marino Marini, Complete Works, New York, 1970, no. 212, illustration of another cast p. 353 (with incorrect measurements)
Carlo Pirovano, Marino Marini. Scultore, Milan, 1972, no. 214, illustration of another cast (with incorrect measurements)
Mario De Micheli, 'Marino Marini e l'espressione della storia', in L'Unità, Rome, 6th October 1990, pl. 69, illustration of another cast p. 100
Sam Hunter & David Finn, Marino Marini, The Sculpture, New York, 1993, colour illustration of another cast p. 104
Marco Meneguzzo, Marino Marini - Cavalli e Cavalieri, Milan, 1997, no. 33, pp. 26-27
Fondazione Marino Marini (ed.), Marino Marini, Catalogue Raisonné of the Sculptures, Milan, 1998, no. 281, colour illustration of another cast p. 196

Rich black patina. There are slight cracks and scuff marks to the wooden base, inherent to the artist's working process. This work is in good conditon.
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The present work is a remarkable and monumental example of Marini's bronzes of horses, a dominating theme throughout most of his career. Cavallo is rendered with a grace and poise reminiscent of the elegance of classical sculpture, a style that characterised the artist work in the years before and during World War II. The tranquility and assured pose of the animal stand in sharp contrast with Marini's later bronzes, in which the horses and their riders acquire a sense of drama that would reflect the anxiety and instability of the new era.

 

The extraordinary power and beauty of Cavallo lie in the careful rendering of its surface, showing the artist's almost painterly attention to finish. Inspired like most Italian artists by antiquity, Marini was drawn not to the refinement of Hellenistic sculpture, but to the rougher, more energetic expression of the Archaic period in Greece and Etruscan sculpture in Italy. Amongst 20th century sculptors, Marini was one of the most actively involved in the finishing of his pieces before they left the foundry, often applying varying surface marks and paint to his bronzes. A stunning example of Marini's involvement in hand-chiselling a sculpture, Cavallo exhibits a striking variety of surface treatments, from smooth and polished to rough and chiselled, that invests the work with an immediacy and versatile quality rarely achieved in this medium.

Other casts of this work are in the collections of the Musée d'Art Contemporain in Montreal, the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, Fondazione Marino Marini in Pistoia and Documentazione Marino Marini in Pistoia.