Marino Marini

Galerie Rusche, Cologne (1954)
Klaus Gebhard, Wuppertal
Sale: Christie's, London, 9th December 1998, lot 687
Private Collection, London (purchased at the above sale)
Acquired from the above by the present owner

Patrick Waldberg, Herbert Read & Gualtieri di San Lazzaro, Marino Marini, Complete Works, New York, 1970, no. 292, illustration of another cast p. 215 (with incorrect measurements)
Carlo Pirovano, Marino Marini. Scultore, Milan, 1972, no. 302, illustration of another cast p. 164 (with incorrect measurements)
Marino Marini, Japan, 1978, no. 139, illustration of another cast (with incorrect measurements)
Marco Meneguzzo, Marino Marini - Cavalli e Cavalieri, Milan, 1997, no. 70
Fondazione Marino Marini (ed.), Marino Marini, Catalogue Raisonné of the Sculptures, Milan, 1998, no. 369, illustration of another cast p. 258

The dominant theme of Marini's art, the equestrian subject underwent a number of stylistic transformations throughout the decades, from the simple, rounded forms of the early 1940s, to the highly stylised, almost abstract manner of his late works. In contrast to the earlier sculptures depicting the rider in a dramatic fall, 'Gertrude' Piccolo cavallo captures the stage after the fall, in which the isolated animal stands firmly on the ground, invested with a sense of pride and primal force. The present work was titled after Gertrude Bernoudy, the avid art collector and wife of the famous American architect William Adair Bernoudy. Gertrude Bernoudy was a fervent supporter and friend of artists including Marini, Pablo Picasso and Henry Moore, and owned another cast of the present work.

 

Discussing another bronze of the same subject from 1952, Carlo Pirovano commented: 'In the middle of the tormented phase of his artistic career that swept away his ideals of classical equilibrium [...], Marino isolated one of the protagonists of the drama, the horse (he had already done this at the end of the Thirties, with the same symbolic implications), and, for an instant he gave it the role of the solo actor in what was virtually esoteric isolation. This appears to accentuate the aura of a sacrificial object that the delicate animal assumes, especially in comparison with the violent images from which it has been isolated, and the preciosity of the decoration adds to this effect' (C. Pirovano, in Marino Marini mitografia (exhibition catalogue), Galleria dello Scudo, Verona, 1994-95, p. 84).