| Mario Mafai | |
|---|---|
| Born | 12 February 1902 Rome, Italy |
| Died | 31 March 1965 (aged 63) Rome, Italy |
| Nationality | Italian |
| Field | Painting |
| Training | Expressionism |
| Movement | Scuola romana |
| Works |
Demolizioni di Via Giulia (Demolitions in Via Giulia, 1928) |
| Patrons |
Alberto Della Ragione |
Mario Mafai (born 1902), was an Italian painter, founder with his wife Antonietta Raphaël of the modern art movement called Scuola Romana.
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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.
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]
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