Italian sculptor. Marino Marini was born in Pistoia in 1901. In 1917 he enrolled in the Florence Accademia di Belle Arti where he followed courses in painting taught by Galileo Chini and sculpture by Domenico Trentacoste. These early years of artistic activity in Via degli Artisti were mainly devoted to painting and drawing. Marini's first important sculpture, Popolo (in terracotta), was produced in 1929, the same year in which he was invited by Arturo Martini to move to Milan and teach at Villa Reale in Monza. This was also the year in which he exhibited in Nice with the Novecento group and undertook his first trip to Paris. His first solo exhibition was in Milan in 1932 and in 1935 he won first prize at the Rome Quadriennale.Marini leftVilla Reale in 1940 for the chair of sculpture at the Brera Academy which he held until 1943 when the war (which had led to the destruction of his studio) caused him to retreat to the Swiss Canton of Ticino which was the birthplace of his wife. This time was rich in contacts with both old and new friends from Paris such as Wotruba, Germaine Richier, Giacometti, Haller and Banninger. There are many portraits in bronze and plaster from this period and in 1944 Marini exhibited at the Kunstmuseum in Basle.When the war was over Marini returned to his previous existence in Milan, reopening his studio and taking up his teaching job at Brera again. At the 24th Venice Biennale in 1948 a room was dedicated to his works. He met Henry Moore, with whom he formed a lifelong friendship, and Curt Valentin, the American merchant who organised an exhibition for him in New York in 1950.A permanent display was dedicated to him at the Neue Pinakothen in Munich in 1976, in 1978 an exhibition of paintings and sculptures was taken to Japan and in 1979 a documentation centre for his works was set up in Pistoia.