Mino Maccari biography

Mino Maccari was an Italian painter, engraver and writer. A multifaceted and influential figure in the Italian artistic and literary panorama, he was born in Siena in 1898, into a family from the lower middle class of Siena. From a young age he demonstrated a lively intelligence and a propensity for drawing, preferring the use of charcoal. However, at the insistence of his father, a professor of literature, he turned towards traditional studies, graduating in law in 1920. During his university period, Mino Maccari stood out for his rebellious and interventionist spirit, participating as an artillery officer in the First World War.
At the end of the conflict, he resumed his studies in Siena and began working as a trainee at the lawyer Dini's office in Colle di Val d'Elsa. In his free moments from work, however, Mino Maccari dedicates himself to his true passion: painting. His restless and polemical spirit reflects the equally tumultuous period in Italian history, the post-war period. Mino Maccari stands out both for his participation in social clashes and as an important figure during the March on Rome in 1922.
In 1924, he was commissioned by Angiolo Bencini to take care of the printing of the magazine Il Selvaggio, a fascist, revolutionary and anti-bourgeois newspaper, where he published his first recordings. In 1926, he definitively abandoned the legal profession to take on the direction of Il Selvaggio, which he held until 1942. Il Selvaggio initially promoted an intransigent fascism that aimed to subvert the old bourgeois state. However, when Mino Maccari realizes Mussolini's intention to promote the normalization of fascism, the magazine changes course, focusing more on cultural terrain. To mark this transition, Maccari writes an article entitled Farewell to the past, which outlines the new direction of Il Selvaggio: a commitment to art, satire, and political laughter, following a popular and apparently mocking, but in reality subtly cultured.
In parallel with the direction of the newspaper, Mino Maccari continues to dedicate himself to his artistic career. He participated in several national exhibitions between 1927 and 1930, establishing himself as a painter appreciated by the general public. In the following years, his collaborations extended to other important Italian magazines such as La Stampa, Quadrivio, Italia Letteraria, and Omnibus.
After the Second World War, he continued to enjoy success and recognition for his artistic work, full of decisive brushstrokes, vibrant chromatic accents and a lively graphic style. His artistic production is endless and varied, including drawings, watercolours, tempera and collaborations with prestigious publishing houses. In 1963 he won the Feltrinelli Prize for Painting and, ten years later, he was the first to receive the Political Satire Prize of Forte dei Marmi.
Despite the success, Mino Maccari he died silently and without fanfare in Rome in 1989, at the age of 90. His life and work remain a notable example of an artist who sailed against the grain, experimenting and innovating through diverse forms of artistic expression. His works continue to be appreciated for their liveliness and their ability to capture, with a documentary approach, the various aspects of Italian reality.