Mario Radice (10 August 1898 – 26 July 1987) was an Italian

painter Painting is a Visual arts, visual art, which is characterized by the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called "matrix" or "Support (art), support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with ...

born in

Como Como (, ; , or ; ) is a city and (municipality) in Lombardy, Italy. It is the administrative capital of the Province of Como. Nestled at the southwestern branch of the picturesque Lake Como, the city is a renowned tourist destination, ce ...

. He is considered to be an important Italian abstract artist.

Life and work

Mario Radice, together with Manlio Rho, Aldo Galli, Carla Badiali and others, belonged to the art group named "astrattisti comaschi", a reference to early European experiences of

abstract art Abstract art uses visual language of shape, form, color and line to create a Composition (visual arts), composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. ''Abstract art'', ''non-figurative art'', ''non- ...

. He was fascinated by rationalist architecture and was one of the first Italian artists to break from figurative art to join the abstract movement flourishing across Europe at the time. Radice worked closely with the most important Italian rationalist architects (Terragni, Lingeri, Sartoris and Cattaneo), reaching international popularity with abstract frescoes done between 1933 and 1936 for the famous Casa del Fascio of Como, a masterpiece municipal building by Giuseppe Terragni for the

National Fascist Party The National Fascist Party (, PNF) was a political party in Italy, created by Benito Mussolini as the political expression of Italian fascism and as a reorganisation of the previous Italian Fasces of Combat. The party ruled the Kingdom of It ...

. Eventually the frescoes were destroyed at the end of World War II but photographic documentation still exists. His works were shown in nine

Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale ( ; ) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy. There are two main components of the festival, known as the Art Biennale () and the Venice Biennale of Architecture, Architecture Biennale (), ...

from 1940 to 1979, in which he was exhibited in a personal room on three occasions. Recently (2007) some of his works were included in two big exhibits held in Milan's Royal Palace: ''Camera con vista'' and ''Kandinskji and Italian

''. Like the works of the other founder of the Italian abstractist school, Manlio Rho, Radice's art is recognizable for pure and harmonic geometric shapes in warm colors. Radice's works can be found in the permanent collections of many modern art museums, including those of

Milan Milan ( , , ; ) is a city in northern Italy, regional capital of Lombardy, the largest city in Italy by urban area and the List of cities in Italy, second-most-populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of nea ...

Trento Trento ( or ; Ladin language, Ladin and ; ; ; ; ; ), also known in English as Trent, is a city on the Adige, Adige River in Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol in Italy. It is the capital of the Trentino, autonomous province of Trento. In the 16th ...

Rovereto Rovereto (; "wood of sessile oaks"; locally: ''Roveredo'') is a city and ''comune'' in Trentino in northern Italy, located in the Vallagarina valley of the Adige River. History Rovereto was an ancient fortress town standing at the fronti ...

Turin Turin ( , ; ; , then ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital from 1861 to 1865. The city is main ...

and

Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...

References

;References in Italian * ''Mario Radice, Catalogo Generale'', Luciano Caramel, Electa * ''L'arte Contemporanea, da Cèzanne alle ultime tendenze'', Renato Barilli, Feltrinelli, Milano, 1984 * ''Mario Radice'', Guido Ballo - Ilte 1974 * ''Storia dell'arte contemporanea in Italia'', Renato Barilli, Bollati Boringhieri, Torino, 2007 * ''Peripezie del dopoguerra nell'arte Italiana'', Adachiara Zevi, Einaudi, 2005 * ''L'arte del XX secolo'', vol.II - La cultura artistica fra le due guerre - AA.VV. - Skira ;References in Italian with English text * ''Camera con vista'', Catalogo della Mostra - Palazzo Reale, Milano, 2007 * ''Kandinskij e l'astrattismo italiano'', Catalogo della Mostra - Palazzo Reale, Milano, 2007

External links

A book-interview done before Radice's death with some of his pictures

Sources

* This article draws from the corresponding article in the

Italian Wikipedia The Italian Wikipedia () is the Italian language, Italian-language edition of Wikipedia. This edition was created on 10 May 2001, and first edited on 11 June 2001. As of , it has articles and more than registered accounts. It is the -largest W ...

. {{DEFAULTSORT:Radice, Mario 1898 births 1987 deaths Artists from Como 20th-century Italian painters Italian male painters 20th-century Italian male artists

Life and work

See also

References

External links

Sources