Antonietta Raphaël

Antonietta Raphaël (* 1895 in Kaunas , Russian Empire ; died September 5, 1975 in Rome , Italy ) was an Italian sculptor and painter of Jewish origin. Together with her husband Mario Mafai she founded the Scuola Romana ("Roman School"). Their art was characterized by a broad anti-academic conviction. Her main work after the Second World War consisted of sculptures. Above all, the delicate and lively corporeality that works like Miriam dormiente (Sleeping Miriam) and Nemesis express, was highlighted by their critics.

Life

Raphaël was the daughter of a rabbi . After her father died, she moved with her mother to London , where she frequently visited the British Museum and made the acquaintance of Jacob Epstein and Ossip Zadkine . Through Zadkine she came into contact with Expressionism . However, she focused on playing the piano at the time. She graduated from the Royal Academy of Music and taught solfège in the East End .

Her mother died in 1919 and she moved to Paris and then to Rome in 1924 . In 1925 she attended the Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma and became friends with Mario Mafai . They began a long-term relationship that resulted in three daughters: Miriam (* 1926), journalist and partner of Giancarlo Pajetta ; Simona (* 1928), Senator of the Senato della Repubblica and writer; and Giulia (* 1930), set and costume designer.

In 1927, Raphaël and Mafai moved into an apartment on Via Cavour in Rome. Her apartment quickly developed into a meeting place for artists such as Giuseppe Ungaretti , Leonardo Sinisgalli , Scipione , Renato Marino Mazzacurati and Corrado Cagli . There the Scuola Romana originated .

In April 1929, Raphaël took part in the First Fascist Trade Union Exhibition of Lazio ( Sindacale del Lazio ) at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome , with the support of the art historian Roberto Longhi . In 1930 she went to Paris with Mafai, where she began to focus on sculpture. In 1932 she was back in London and met Jacob Epstein again. She then moved to Rome for good and began her masterpiece Fuga da Sodoma (Escape from Sodom) , which she created as a guest in Ettore Colla's studio . Between 1936 and 1938 she exhibited at other trade union exhibitions. During this time, her plastic forms show no influence whatsoever from the Italian sculpture movement of that time. Rather, influences from Emile-Antoine Bourdelle can be seen. When the Italian Racial Laws were introduced under fascism , Raphaël fled to Genoa with her family . The family was supported and hidden by the art collector Emilio Jesi and the philanthropist Alberto Della Ragione .

During the Second World War, Raphaël initially stayed in Rome with her daughter Giulia, but then went back to Genoa to work, where she stayed with a group of older sculptors who, however, had a different style. This group included Edoardo Alfieri , Nanni Servettaz, Raimondi, Camillo Maine, Lorenzo Garaventa, Sandro Cherchi, Agenore Fabbri , Roberto Bertagnin (brother-in-law of Arturo Martini ) and Luigi Navone.

In 1948 Raphaël exhibited at the Venice Biennale . From 1952, art critics began to fully appreciate her work. Selected works were exhibited in the Galleria dello Zodiaco in Rome. In 1956 she traveled to China , where she exhibited her works in Beijing together with Aligi Sassu , Agenore Fabbri, Giulio Turcato and others. Exhibitions in Europe, Asia and America followed. At the 8th Rome Quadriennale , 1959 to 1960, which was explicitly dedicated to the Scuola Romana , her works were presented to the public, making her one of the most famous members of the school.

Appreciation

Due to her liberal and open personality and her diverse cultural origins, Raphaël brought an unconventional internationalism in Roman circles . During the years in Via Cavour, she produced portraits and landscapes, which were characterized by a formal simplification and which contained compositional deformations between Naïve and Chagall- like dream fantasies. From 1932 onwards, her sculptures took on increasingly naturalistic forms with symbolic and monumental emphases that are reminiscent of Eastern cultures.

literature

• Valentino Martinelli: Antoniette Raphaël Mafia. (=  Artisti d'oggi ). De Luca, Rome 1960, OCLC 79312662 .
• A. Menzio (Ed.): Raphaël. Catalog. Ivrea 1960.
• M. Fagiolo, E. Coen. (Ed.): Raphaël - Scultura lingua viva. Catalog. Rome 1978.
• Fabrizio D'Amico (Ed.): Antonietta Raphaël - Sculture. Catalog.
• V. Mann (Ed.): Gardens and ghettos. The Art of Jewish Life in Italy. Catalog. New York City 1989.
• P. Hulten, G. Celant: Arte italiana, presenze 1900-1945. Catalog. Venice 1989.
• Francesco Negri Arnoldi: Storia dell'Arte. Volume III. Fabbri, Milan 1989, ISBN 88-450-0735-9 , p. 616.
• Fabrizio D'Amico: Antonietta Raphaël. In: Nove Maestri della scuola Romana. Turin 1992.
• M. Fagiolo (Ed.): I Mafai - Vite parallele. Catalog. With biography of FR Morelli.
• Antonietta Raphaël sculptures and painting 1933-1968. Catalog. Paolo Baldacci Gallery, New York City 1995.
• Enzo Siciliano : Il risveglio della bionda sirena. Raphaël e Mafai. Storia di un amore coniugale. Milan 2005.
• Serena De Dominicis: Antonietta Raphaël Mafai. Un'artista non conforme. Selene Edizioni, 2006.

Movie

• Io non sono un altro - l'arte di Mario Mafai (I Am Not the Other - The Art of Mario Mafai). Director: Giorgio Cappozzo. DVD. Studio Angeletti & Scuola Romana Archive, 2005.

Web links

• Antonietta Raphaël at Scuolaromana.it
• Archivio della Scuola Romana on the Villa Torlonia website
• Archivio Contemporaneo "Alessandro Bonsanti" - The Mario Mafai-Antonietta Raphaël Fund.
• Fabrizio D'Amico: Biography of Antonietta Raphaël (Italian: PDF)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Enzo Siciliano : Il risveglio della bionda sirena. Raphaël e Mafai. Storia di un amore coniugale (=  Scrittori italiani e stranieri ). A. Mondadori, Milan 2004, ISBN 88-04-52176-7 , p. 229 (Italian, books.google.de - restricted view).
2. ↑ tender and vibrant carnality present in stone
3. ↑ ( page no longer available , search in web archives: Civic Museum of Fine Art - La Collezione ) of the city of Lugano . August 14, 2008.
4. ↑ Fuga da Sodoma. ( Memento of the original from May 28, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 1935-1936. May 25, 2011. 
5. ^ The Sculptures. May 25, 2011.
6. ↑ Maine Camillo , short biography. May 25, 2011.
7. ↑ Nude by Sandro Cherchi. May 25, 2011.
8. ^ Agenore Fabbri ( Memento from September 30, 2008 in the Internet Archive ), biography. May 25, 2011.
9. ↑ In the style of post-impressionism in the style of Henri Rousseau .
10. ↑ oneiric fantasy
11. ↑ Francesco Negri Arnoldii: Storia dell'Arte. Volume III. 1989, p. 616.