Marino MariniGiocolieri – Jongleurs. Acrobat Riders. 1954-55.

Original lithograph in four

colours. 1954-55. Signed in pencil and numbered from the edition of 50 (plus 6

artist’s proofs). Drawn by Marini and printed at the Atelier Mourlot, Paris

1955. Edition issued by Gerald Cramer Zurich and Berggruen, Paris. 1955.

Reference: Guastalla – Marini

Opera Grafica L 48. San Lazzaro - Marini L’Oeuvre Gravé The

Lithographs no 56. Recorded

by Berggruen as no 56.

Provenance:

Baron Henri Petiet Collection. Acquired for that collection in the 1950’s direct

 from Berggruen. With the Petiet

collection mark  on the reverse.

Very

fine strong impression with exceptionally brilliant colours. On pale cream wove

Arches paper. The full sheet. Sheet: 66.4 x 50.8 cm. Image: 63 x 44 cm. 24 ¾ x 17

/4 ins.

An

extremely fine example of Marino Marini’s work in colour lithography from his

most influential and creative period in the 1950’s.

Marino

Marini was one of the leading avant-garde Italian artists of the mid 20^th

century. His imagery, largely expressed through the motif of ‘horse and rider’,

and concerning the interaction between man and nature, is amongst the most significant

of that era. It is also a significant precursor

to our 21^st century concerns  about the natural world and climate.

Marini

saw that the relationship between the nature of the horse and the needs of the

human rider was sometimes one of harmony and at other times a source of strife.

He felt that it was an expression of the on-going conflict between the human

desire to control nature and the absolute need to preserve it in its natural

form.

‘Giocolieri

– Acrobat Riders’, here, expresses Marini’s ideas and concerns to the full.

Marini

first worked in the medium of lithography as early as the 1940’s – but at that

period only in monochrome black and white. In the early 1950’s he sought to

learn the way that colour could be introduced, first at the Kratz Studio of the

L’Oeuvre Gravé association in Zurich and then at the L’Oeuvre Gravé studio in

Paris.  It was his  Paris dealer, the very influential Heinz

Berggruen, who introduced him to Mourlot.  The association and the access to the facilities

of that great lithography studio gave Marini a new force of imagery which is

very apparent in this 1955 work.