(Pistoia 1901–1980 Viareggio)
Piccolo cavallo, 1943, signed M. M., bronze, 31.4 x 46.6 x 14.2 cm (without base), h. 42.5 cm (with base)

This work was executed in an edition of 5 examples (three of them are in private collections)
The work is registered in the Fondazione Marino Marini, Pistoia and is accompanied by a photo certificate of authenticity

Provenance:
Collection of Marina Marini (wife of the artist)
Didier Imbert Collection, Paris
European Private Collection

Exhibited:
Lugano, Marino Marini - Gli anni nel Ticino sculture – disegni, Galleria Pieter Coray, October-December 1981, exh. cat. with ill. no. 4
Venice, Marino Marini. Sculture pitture disegni dal 1914 al 1977,
28 May – 15 August 1983, exh. cat. no. 38
Munich, Marino Marini (1901–1980) – Plastiken Bilder Zeichnungen, Alter Herkulessaal, March-April 1984, exh. cat. with ill. no. 9
Verona, Marino Marini. Mitografia. Sculture e dipinti 1939 – 1966, Galleria dello Scudo, 11 December 1994 – 12 February 1995, exh. cat. p. 37
Paris, Paris Capitale des Arts, Galerie Didier Imbert, 28 April –
14 July 1989, exh. cat. p. 149, no. 69 with ill.

Literature:
G. Contini, 20 sculture di Marino Marini, Quaderni della Collana
di Lugano, ed. Collana, Lugano 1944, pl. 9
A. H. Hammacher, Marino Marini sculptures, paintings, drawings, ed.

Harry N. Abrams, Inc. Publishers, New York 1970, pl. 101
P. Waldberg-H. Read-G. di San Lazaro, L’Oeuvre complète de Marino Marini, ed. XXe Siecle, Paris 1970 c. s. n. 124
C. Pirovano, Marino Marini-Scultore. Electa, Milan 1972, no. 133 with ill.
M. Meneguzzo, Marino Marini-Il Museo alla Villa Reale di Milano, Skira Editore, Milan 1997, cat. p. 209, no. 17
Fondazione Marino Marini (ed.), Marino Marini, Marino Marini. Catalogo ragionato della scultura, Skira,
Milan 1998, p. 148, no. 205 with ill.

„The entire history of humanity and of nature can be found in the figure of a rider and a horse, in every era. It is my way of recounting history. It is the medium I need to give human passion a form (...)“

Marino Marini

The horse can be seen as a veritable symbol in Marini’s art, a highly original language adopted by the artist to express himself and to understand reality. Although we can see that he had multiple sources of inspiration - from the so-called Bamberg Horseman, to the Tang horses of Chinese art, right through to Picasso’s circus horses for his more animated sculptures - what fascinated him most were the small Etruscan bronze horses or the ones he had seen depicted on Etruscan tombs. For Marini, returning to Etruscan art was the only way to understand the origins of the form in sculpture, but above all, to rediscover his own roots, his own ancestors.

„I look to the Etruscans for the same reason that all modern art has turned backwards, passing over the immediate past and has sought to reinvigorate itself in the more authentic expression of a virginal and remote humanity. The coincidence is not only cultural, but we aspire to a simplicity of art.“ (Statement to the newspaper Il Sud Attualità, on the occasion of the 1948 Biennale)

Marini was able to simultaneously measure himself against Picasso, Gothic sculpture, Henry Moore, Renaissance portraiture, Rodin and Maillol, against art forms from the most distant continents. The distinctive characteristic of his art was precisely the fact that he knew how to make use of the testimony of the past, of his cultural roots, of the links with an ancestral past in order to create contemporary art that fully participated in the revolutions of his own time, in dialogue with current events.