Marino Marini in Pistoia: Palazzo Fabroni and the secret painting

Promoting the work of Marino Marini even during the extraordinary maintenance phase of Palazzo del Tau means maintaining—and indeed strengthening—the link between the artist and Pistoia.

As acting mayor Anna Maria Celesti pointed out, this exhibition is not a pause, but a relaunch: it is in fact the first concrete result of the memorandum of understanding signed at the beginning of December by those involved in the project, an agreement that focuses on the preservation and dissemination of Marino Marini’s artistic legacy.

This event represents the first concrete emanation, the first visible result of the memorandum of understanding signed at the beginning of December by the parties involved in this project, together with the Regional Directorate of National Museums of Tuscany of the Ministry of Culture, which is responsible for the management of the former church of Tau. A shared action that focuses on the protection, enhancement, and public restitution of Marino Marini’s heritage, reaffirming the role of the Municipality of Pistoia as an active protagonist in a long-term cultural strategy.”

Along the same lines, the president of the Marino Marini Foundation, Andrea Niccolai, spoke of a new phase for the institution: a new beginning based on renewed collaboration with the Municipality of Pistoia and the Caript Foundation, with the shared goal of strengthening the identity of Pistoia as the City of Marino. Pending the reopening of Palazzo del Tau, the artist’s works are once again accessible and in dialogue with the public thanks to this exhibition, “designed to draw attention to a lesser-known aspect of his work—his painting—which has long remained in the shadow of his sculpture. The exhibition dedicated to Marino as a painter offers an exciting selection of his paintings, which are sometimes overlooked and forgotten in favor of his more celebrated sculptures. After all, Marino himself said that his inspiration came from color and that color gave rise to form, which explains the intimate connection between his painting and his sculpture. While we wait for the Palazzo del Tau to reopen to visitors, these works can come back to life and be appreciated once again. It is thanks to their intense and careful work that the exhibition has been made possible. Heartfelt thanks to our director Simone Martini and the director of the Civic Museums Elena Testaferrata. »

“Marino Marini ‘sought in color the beginning of every idea that was to become something’,” recalls Benedetta Menichelli, Councilor for Culture of the Municipality of Pistoia. That is why this temporary exhibition of the artist’s paintings, created with the restraint of those who do not make proclamations, marks the start of a real cultural development project shared around the heritage of works and documents that Pistoia has at its disposal. Within this project, the municipal administration is once again committed to doing its part, first and foremost by updating the role of the Documentation Center as a specialized section of the Museum of the Twentieth Century and Contemporary Art in Palazzo Fabroni within the network of Pistoia’s civic museums.”

“Through the collaboration agreement, the Caript Foundation supports a project that promotes the work of Marino Marini and his deep connection with Pistoia, promoting awareness of a heritage that belongs to our community. Investing in culture means strengthening the identity of the territory and offering new opportunities for participation and awareness,” says Luca Gori, president of the Caript Foundation.

Beyond sculpture, inside the mind

For Marino Marini, painting was never a secondary exercise. On the contrary, it was a territory of free experimentation, often more intimate, where form melts and color becomes an emotional field.

In the paintings on display, the human figure—central as in sculpture—appears less monumental and more fragile, sometimes deformed, traversed by a tension that seems to arise from within. The pictorial mark is direct, sometimes angular, far from any decorative complacency.

Here, painting does not “narrate” sculpture: it anticipates it, contradicts it, challenges it.

Color, rhythm, restlessness

The exhibition highlights a style of painting characterized by bold backgrounds, uncompromising colors, and essential compositions.

Multiple influences emerge—from Etruscan art to the European avant-garde—but always reworked in a personal, dry, sometimes harsh language.

Marini’s paintings convey the same existential tension that runs through his horsemen: the body as a place of unstable equilibrium, the figure as a metaphor for humanity in the balance.

It is painting that seeks not consensus but truth.

In Marino Marini’s creative journey, painting and sculpture proceed in parallel throughout his research.

However, unlike other artists active on both fronts, his pictorial production cannot be read as a simple reflection of his sculptural work. On the contrary, it develops an autonomous, coherent, and deeply personal language.

While it is true that subjects, attention to plastic dimensions, and interest in movement constitute common ground between the two practices, it is equally evident that, starting in the early 1930s, Marini was able to decisively confront the most advanced instances of European anti-classicism, gradually arriving at an independent style of painting.

In the 1950s and 1960s, in particular, this research focused increasingly on a close reflection on form, free from descriptive intent.

The exhibition, organized by thematic sections and enriched by the presence of several black-and-white photographs taken by the artist himself, begins with his early paintings and then focuses on the mature developments of his experimentation, with particular attention to the works created between the late 1950s and the following decade.

In the second room, large-format paintings such as Emozione del gioco (Emotion of the Game) and La caduta dell’Angelo (The Fall of the Angel), both from the late 1960s, strike the viewer with their chromatic intensity and use of bright, vibrant tones, which amplify the expressive power of the compositions.