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

Como Como (, ; lmo, Còmm, label= Comasco , or ; lat, Novum Comum; rm, Com; french: Côme) is a city and ''comune'' in Lombardy, Italy. It is the administrative capital of the Province of Como. Its proximity to Lake Como and to the Alps h ...

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

Life and work

Mario Radice, together with

Manlio Rho Manlio Rho (1901 – 1957) was a painter born in Como, Italy. He is considered one of the most important abstract artists in Italy. Life and work In the late 1920s Manlio Rho was deeply involved in Como's engagement with the European ...

, Aldo Galli, Carla Badiali and others, belonged to the art group named "astrattisti comaschi", a reference to early European experiences of abstract art. He was fascinated by

rationalist architecture In architecture, Rationalism is an architectural current which mostly developed from Italy in the 1920s and 1930s. Vitruvius had claimed in his work '' De architectura'' that architecture is a science that can be comprehended rationally. The form ...

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 A ''casa del Fascio'', ''casa Littoria'', or ''casa del Littorio'' () was a building housing the local branch of the National Fascist Party and later the Republican Fascist Party under the regime of Italian Fascism, in Italy and its colonies. ...

of Como, a masterpiece municipal building by

Giuseppe Terragni Giuseppe Terragni (; 18 April 1904 – 19 July 1943) was an Italian architect who worked primarily under the fascist regime of Benito Mussolini and pioneered the Italian modern movement under the rubric of Rationalism. His most famous work is the C ...

for the

National Fascist Party The National Fascist Party ( it, Partito Nazionale Fascista, PNF) was a political party in Italy, created by Benito Mussolini as the political expression of Italian Fascism and as a reorganization of the previous Italian Fasces of Combat. Th ...

. 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 (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...

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 abstract art''. Like the works of the other founder of the Italian abstractist school,

, 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 ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...

Trento Trento ( or ; Ladin and lmo, Trent; german: Trient ; cim, Tria; , ), also anglicized as Trent, is a city on the Adige River in Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol in Italy. It is the capital of the autonomous province of Trento. In the 16th ce ...

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 frontier ...

Turin Turin ( , Piedmontese: ; it, Torino ) 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 ...

and

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

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

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

Life and work

See also

References

External links

Sources