Marino Marini
Italian, 1901 - 1980La Traviata (from the ‘Metropolitan Opera Portfolio’), 1977
Not on view
Lithograph on paper
Dimensions29 3/4 × 21 7/8 in. (75.6 × 55.6 cm)
Image: 28 × 20 in. (71.1 × 50.8 cm)
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Keith Davis, 1979.54
Born in Pistoia, Tuscany in 1901, Marino Marini studied painting and sculpture at the Florence Academy, and was later awarded the prestigious Gran Prix for Sculpture at Rome in 1935. Marini’s Expressionist sculptures have eroded, scarred surfaces, similar to artists working in the same genre, such as Rodin and Giacometti.
Marini frequently employed the image of horses for his sculptures, so much that his work is often identified with this subject. However, he also created images, particularly in his graphic art, of a variety of subjects, including earth goddesses, dancers, jugglers, and as depicted in his lithograph, La Traviata, operatic themes. This image, used by the Metropolitan Opera in 1978 as a promotional poster, conveys through its expressive figures and brilliant colors, the passion and melodrama of Verdi’s famous opera.
