Mario Mafai

Mario Mafai
Born	12 February 1902(1902-02-12) Rome, Italy
Died	31 March 1965(1965-03-31) (aged 63) Rome, Italy
Nationality	Italian
Field	Painting
Training	Expressionism
Movement	Scuola romana
Works	Demolizioni di Via Giulia (Demolitions in Via Giulia, 1928) Paesaggio romano (Roman landscape, 1929) Demolizioni dell'Augusteo (1936) Gli scaricatori di carbone (The coal carriers, 1950)
Patrons	Alberto Della Ragione Roberto Longhi

Mario Mafai (born 1902), was an Italian painter, founder with his wife Antonietta Raphaël of the modern art movement called Scuola Romana.

Biography

Mafai left regular school very early, preferring to go and attend with Scipione, the free School of Nude at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma. His poetic sense and his career ramained very close to Rome, both in themes and studies, as well as in influences: the artist's formation during those years was mainly absorbed from Roman galleris and museums, and in the Fine Arts Library at Palazzo Venezia.

Having met painter and sculptor Raphaël in 1925, they began a lifelong relationship that encompassed art and private life.^[1] In 1927 began exhibiting for the first time, with a Mostra di studi e bozzetti organised by the Associazione Artistica Nazionale in Via Margutta. In 1928 he had a second exhibition, at the XCIV Mostra degli Amatori e Cultori di Belle Arti, as well as a collective with Scipione and other painters, at the Young Painters Convention of Palazzo Doria in 1929. Particularly strong is Mafai's anti-impressionism style.

Those pre-war years were very intense for the artistic couple: in November 1927, Mafai and Raphaël moved to No. 325 of Roman street via Cavour, in a Savoyan palace subsequently demolished in 1930 in order to allow the fascist construction of the New Empire Way (currently the via dei Fori Imperiali). The apartment's larger room was immediately transformed by the couple into a studio.

Within a short time, this studio became a meeting point for literati such as Enrico Falqui, Giuseppe Ungaretti, Libero de Libero, Leonardo Sinisgalli, as well as young artists Scipione, Renato Marino Mazzacurati,^[2] and Corrado Cagli.

Critical Appraisal

Mafai's preference for a lyrical, intimate subject-matter contrasted with the monumental neo-classicism of the Novecento Italiano. Together with his friend Scipione, Mafai painted from reality, with views of Rome and its suburbs conveying a new fresh taste of pictorial curiosity, giving no importance to those things which tend to diminish chromatic expression. This vision is particularly emphasised in his 1936-1939 work, on those paintings entitled Demolitions, where the artist joins solemnity with banality, eternity with quotidian - also making a subtle political statement against the great restructuring urban works carried out by the fascist regime. His paintings always emanate a delicate poetical sense with their multicoloured hives of modest and yet serene domestic intimacy.^[3]

Filmography

• Io non sono un altro - l'arte di Mario Mafai (I Am Not the Other - The Art of Mario Mafai), DVD, Studio Angeletti & Scuola Romana Archive, 2005, directed by Giorgio Cappozzo

See also

• Scuola Romana
• Expressionism
• Novecento Italiano
• Francisco Goya
• Chaïm Soutine

Notes

1. ^ They had three daughters: Miriam in 1926, a writer, journalist, partner of politician Giancarlo Pajetta, and MP; Simona in 1928, a senator, author, and feminist; and Giulia in 1930, a scenographer and costume designer.
2. ^ On Mazzacurati, see also his biographical (Italian) note at Scuola Romana.it
3. ^ Cf. F. Negri Arnoldi, Storia dell'Arte Moderna, Milan 1990, pp.613-616

Bibliography

• F. N. Arnoldi, Storia dell'Arte, vol. III, Milan 1989
• I Mafai - Vite parallele, catalogue edited by M. Fagiolo, with biography by di F. R. Morelli
• Enzo Siciliano, Il risveglio della bionda sirena. Raphaël e Mafai. Storia di un amore coniugale, Mondadori, Milan 2005
• Fabrizio D'Amico, Marco Goldin, Casa Mafai : da via Cavour a Parigi : 1925-193, Linea d'ombra, 2004
• Mario Mafai, 1902-1965: una calma febbre di colori, Skira, 2004

External links

• (English) Mafai's works online, on Artcyclopedia.com. ^{Accessed 26 May 2011}
• (English) Mario Mafai, on Artfact.com. ^{Accessed 26 May 2011}
• (Italian) Archive of the Scuola Romana at Villa Torlonia
• (Italian) Archivio Contemporaneo "Alessandro Bonsanti" - The Mario Mafai-Antonietta Raphaël Fund
• (Italian) Mario Mafai and the Scuola romana
• (Italian) The Quadriennale di Roma
• (Italian) History of the Biennale di Venezia
• (Italian) Two Exhibitions on Mafai in Rome and Brescia in 2005
• (Italian) Archivio Contemporaneo "Alessandro Bonsanti" - Mario Mafai Fund
• (Italian) Mafai Gallery, selected work on Settemuse.it, with biography. ^{Accessed 26 May 2011}

Persondata
Name	Mafai, Mario
Alternative names
Short description	Italian painter
Date of birth	12 February 1902
Place of birth	Rome, Italy
Date of death	31 March 1965
Place of death	Rome, Italy