Marino Marini “The Angel of the City” at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice

Sculpture - Bronze (175 x 176 x 106 cm) 1948

Marino Marini is a Tuscan born in Pistoia, near Florence, in 1901.

The Angel of the City It was in Florence that he took the courses of Accademia Delle Belle Arti in 1917.

He began by painting, but without ever neglecting the brush throughout his life, it was through the sculpture that he would assert himself, and this from 1922 onwards.

His sources of influence were the works of Arturo Marini but also the Etruscan works.

In his friends' circle is Giorgio de Chirico and Massimo Campigli, both also exhibited at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection.

In the field of sculpture, Marino Marini befriended Alberto Giacometti.

In the circle of his relations and friendships, we can also mention Alexander Calder, Jean Arp and Henri Moore.

His “Angel of the City” reflects many Etruscan influences, but also from Northern Europe.

The horse is motionless, neck and head stretched forward horizontally, ears stuck, mouth between open.

Motionless but powerful at the same time.

A power, manly and sexually, which asserts itself even more in his rider, upright sex, arms and legs apart, his face stretched towards the sky, in ecstasy.

The Angel of the City