Mario Marcucci e Viareggio

From 18 December 2010 to 13 February 2011 the exhibition “Mario Marcucci e Viareggio – Ambienti e riflessioni sentimentali” (Mario Marcucci and Viareggio – Environments and sentimental reflections) will be on show at Villa Paolina.
Curated by Alessandra Belluomini Pucci, the exhibition celebrates the one hundred years since the artist’s birth in Viareggio in 1910.
The town of Viareggio, with its scenery, colours and atmospheres, represents the central theme of many of the artist’s works. This reference is consistent and constant, reproduced through various pictorial approaches and languages adopted throughout his career.
Marcucci is particularly noted for his uninterrupted experiments with colour that led to his use of a wide range of materials, from wrapping paper and printed sheets to various types of packaging.

It is difficult to classify Marcucci’s language within the avant-garde movements of the 20th century. He is a self-taught, tormented and complicated artist, linked to the artistic generation of the 1910s, who discovered the central elements of his formation in Viareggio, and the strong cultural exchange first with his writer friends Luca Ghiselli (1910-1939) and Mario Tobino (1910 – 1991), and then within the artistic circles of the Ermetici Fiorentini.
He exhibited and received his first rave reviews in Viareggio in the 1930s. In 1937 Carlo Carrà refered to him in an article in “L’Ambrosiano” as “one of the most striking young Italian artists of the time”.
He received many acknowledgements over his career (winner of the Bergamo Award in 1941; the Marzotto Award for the Italian Painting Review in Venice; the 8×10 Award in Rome in 1951, the Michetti Award in 1953 and the Fiorino in 1954) and took part in prestigious exhibitions including the Biennial Exhibition of Modern Art in Venice and the Quadriennial Exhibition in Rome, as well as holding many one-man shows in Florence.
His definitive return to Viareggio in 1966 sparked his most important artistic period, when he produced a considerable number of high quality works.
This exhibition consists of around one hundred pieces, from important private collections. Alongside the paintings of Viareggio’s settings and scenery there will also be a section dedicated to the artist’s self-portraits and portraits of friends and family, including Mario Tobino, Luca Ghiselli and Cesare Garboli.
The catalogue, published by Caleidoscopio Edizioni, includes contributions by Alessandra Belluomini Pucci, Manlio Cancogni, Enzo Faraoni, Massimo Marsili, Claudia Menichini, Piero Pananti, Giovanni Pieraccini, Vanda Puccetti and Susanna Ragionieri.