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Lot Essay
Painted in 1940, Natura morta con manichino, maschera e abito rosso provides an intimate glance into a corner of the studio of Mario Mafai. The artist has arranged the sparse and scattered objects in such a way that both stillness and spectacle are emphasised. Indeed, there is a strange, understated drama that informs this painting: the human figure, though absent in reality, is evoked through the mannequin, the hanging dress and the shattered visage in the foreground, which appears to be a fragment of a sculpture of the artist's wife. In this way, Natura morta con manichino, maschera e abito rosso provides an insight into the mind and mood of the artist, a glimpse into the dramas of his daily life under Mussolini.
Mafai had been one of the key members of the so-called Scuola Romana, a loose grouping of artists which was also referred to as the Scuola di Via Cavour, because it was in his studio on that street that the group usually met. These artists all favoured a certain intimisme that punctured the grandiose gestures and monumentality favoured by so many of their contemporaries in this new age of Italian imperialism under il Duce. Mafai himself had fled Rome the previous year, going to Genoa in part for the sake of his Jewish wife, the famous artist Antoniette Raphaïl, fearing increasingly for her safety in the anti-Semitic atmosphere of their nation. In 1940, he was conscripted for military service. It is against the backdrop of these dramas that Natura morta con manichino, maschera e abito rosso takes its place. This is a pool of stillness and timelessness within which his wife appears, though directly absent, to have taken the central place. There is thus a tale of wanting and of anxiety played out through the artist's deft scenography. The deeply personal content of this painting is made all the more explicit by its intriguing and even ironic use of an iconography associated with Pittura Metafisica and especially with Giorgio de Chirico. Here, the mannequin and sculpture are used to convey an atmosphere and a narrative that are related not to the metaphysical but instead to the artist, to his wife, to the act of painting, and to the atmosphere and infinite potential of the studio as a crucible for creativity. This painterly adventure is made all the more explicit through the gentle, lyrical expressionism evidenced in the artist's palette. Ultimately, these various elements coalesce to create of Natura morta con manichino, maschera e abito rosso a painting that, despite some of the underlying tensions, is most importantly a celebration of the act of creation, of imagination, of art.
Mafai had been one of the key members of the so-called Scuola Romana, a loose grouping of artists which was also referred to as the Scuola di Via Cavour, because it was in his studio on that street that the group usually met. These artists all favoured a certain intimisme that punctured the grandiose gestures and monumentality favoured by so many of their contemporaries in this new age of Italian imperialism under il Duce. Mafai himself had fled Rome the previous year, going to Genoa in part for the sake of his Jewish wife, the famous artist Antoniette Raphaïl, fearing increasingly for her safety in the anti-Semitic atmosphere of their nation. In 1940, he was conscripted for military service. It is against the backdrop of these dramas that Natura morta con manichino, maschera e abito rosso takes its place. This is a pool of stillness and timelessness within which his wife appears, though directly absent, to have taken the central place. There is thus a tale of wanting and of anxiety played out through the artist's deft scenography. The deeply personal content of this painting is made all the more explicit by its intriguing and even ironic use of an iconography associated with Pittura Metafisica and especially with Giorgio de Chirico. Here, the mannequin and sculpture are used to convey an atmosphere and a narrative that are related not to the metaphysical but instead to the artist, to his wife, to the act of painting, and to the atmosphere and infinite potential of the studio as a crucible for creativity. This painterly adventure is made all the more explicit through the gentle, lyrical expressionism evidenced in the artist's palette. Ultimately, these various elements coalesce to create of Natura morta con manichino, maschera e abito rosso a painting that, despite some of the underlying tensions, is most importantly a celebration of the act of creation, of imagination, of art.