Marisa Mori and the Futurists
A Woman Artist in an Age of Fascism
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Published:9th Feb '23
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
A biographical account of Marisa Mori (1900-1985), an exceptional artist in interwar Italy and the only female contributor to TheFuturist Cookbook (1932).
This book introduces a compelling new personality to the modernist canon, Marisa Mori (1900-1985), who became the only female contributor to The Futurist Cookbook (1932) with her recipe for “Italian Breasts in the Sun.” Providing something more complex than a traditional biographical account, Griffiths presents a feminist critique of Mori’s art, converging on issues of gender, culture, and history to offer new critical perspectives on Italian modernism.
If subsequently written out of modernist memory, Mori was once at the center of the Futurism movement in Italy; yet she worked outside the major European capitals and fluctuated between traditional figurative subjects and abstract experimentation. As a result, her in-between pictures can help to re-think the margins of modernism. By situating Mori’s most significant artworks in the critical context of interwar Fascism, and highlighting her artistic contributions before, during, and after her Futurist decade, Griffiths contributes to a growing body of knowledge on the women who participated in the Italian Futurist movement. In doing so, she explores a woman artist’s struggle for modernity among the Italian Futurists in an age of Fascism.
This volume broadens current debates on Futurism by offering a ground-breaking study on a female artist actively involved in the destruction and dismantling of consolidated feminine stereotypes in Italian art and society. Maris Mori deserves recognition for the exuberant dynamism and sensitivity of her painting. Griffiths’ critical reading based on solid documentary evidence offers a more precise chronology of her life and works and, above all, of her conceptual elaboration of the ‘feminine’, located by her in the creative power of the maternal body. This volume will prove invaluable for all scholars of Futurism, modern art and gender studies. * Günter Berghaus, General Editor of the Bibliographic Handbook of Futurism and Senior Research Fellow at the University of Bristol, UK *
“The first English book on this unjustly neglected artist, and a delightful read, Marisa Mori and the Futurists will introduce Mori to a greater public and encourage further scholarship that understands feminism as a historical enterprise. Exploring the complexity of what a feminist intervention in modernism means, Griffiths’s book refuses to pin down, once and for all, the contributions of Mori—surely, a feminist gesture in itself.” * John Gerard Champagne, Professor of English, Pennsylvania State University, USA *
This book is a well informed and thoughtful case study about an intriguing Italian futurist female artist, seen in the historical context of Italian fascism and analyzed through a powerful feminist lens. It is a welcome contribution to the growing body of criticism that is making Italian avant-garde women better known internationally. * Lucia Re, Research Professor of Italian, University of California, Los Angeles, USA *
Marisa Mori and the Futurists thoroughly situates the artist in conversation with her historical moment, elucidating the ways in which she refashioned Futurist language to speak on issues of modern womanhood. * Woman's Art Journal *
ISBN: 9781350232631
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
176 pages