Marino Marini Orfeo, 1979

Marino Marini, one of the most acclaimed Italian sculptors of the 20th century, is renowned for his figurative bronze sculptures.

His artistic repertoire also extended to paintings, drawings, and etchings. Drawing inspiration from Etruscan and Northern European traditions, Marini reinvented classical motifs like the female nude, portrait busts, and equestrian figures, infusing them with modernist characteristics of exaggerated and elongated forms.
Towards the end of his career Marini’s sometimes-monumental sculptures became increasingly abstracted. On trips to Paris and New York, he associated with Giorgio de Chirico, Jean Arp, Max Beckmann, and Alexander Calder, among other major modernist artists.

High auction record
£4.5m, Christie's, 2010