Additional Images

Provenance:

Galleria Levi Arte Contemporanea, Milan, Italy gallery label verso backing, inscribed number “408” to their circular gallery stamp verso;
The Hanover Gallery, London, UK;
Sig. David Colombo ℅ Rogers inscribed in pen and ink to the Hanover Gallery label verso backing;
Simon Dresdnere, Toronto inscribed to the frame verso;
Private Collection, Toronto

Note:

Italian sculptor, painter and printmaker Marino Marini’s oeuvre is typically categorized into three themes, all of which were symbolic to the artist: the female figure, performers and athletes, and the horse and rider. The latter is perhaps the most central for Marini, who noted that “My riders express the anxiety aroused in me by the events of my epoch. The restlessness of my horses increases with each new work; the riders become ever more impotent, losing command over the animals. Thus I seek to symbolize the last stage in the dissolution of a myth, the myth of the heroic, triumphant individual, the uomo di virtù [man of virtue] of the humanists.”

Marini saw his equestrian works not only as the continuation of a great theme in Italian art, but also as an excellent form through which to channel compositional explorations. In his work, Marini sought to reduce his subjects to their essences, paring them down into spare lines and surfaces, a tendency which deepened as his career progressed.