Marino Tartaglia
(1894 – 1984)
Triptych (Self-Portraits), I-III, 1964
oil on wood and canvas
107 x 200 cm
MG-2433
Marino Tartaglia (1894 – 1984) is a universal painter of historical and high Modern art. His painting is a synthesis of different influences and styles, ranging from El Greco and Tintoretto, Primitivism, Cézannism, Cubism, Expressionism, Futurism, Neoclassicism, Colourism, and Lyrical and Reductive Abstraction. Tartaglia’s references are often illegible, and his painting is based on the rationalisation of painting procedures. With them, he reconciles the laws of plastic order and the emotional approach to painting (T. Maroević). Tartaglian sfumato is correlated with E. Vidović. In the Marginalia, he reconciles the contradictions with the postulate: “The painting must reconcile all contradictions; and be a timeless archaeological find in its own time.”
In 1912, he began his studies in Florence (Giacometti) and then continued his education at the Instituto Superiore di Belle Arti in Rome; he was friends with the representatives of Futurism gathered around the magazine Lacerba. He was the only foreigner to have exhibited his work at the 1918 Exhibition of Independent Artists in Rome, together with the prominent Italian Avant-Gardists (C. Carà, G. De Chirico, E. Prampolini, A. Soffici). After the end of World War I (1918 – 1921), he lived in Split, Vienna, Belgrade and France. In 1947 he became a full professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb, and in 1948 a full member of the Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts.
Triptych (Self-Portraits) I-III evoke the glowing self-portrait from 1917, then the one with the pipe (1921), while the third evokes the laurels of the third epoch. He was the recipient of the Vladimir Nazor Lifetime Achievement Award (1964), and retrospective exhibitions of his work were staged at the Art Pavilion in Zagreb in 1975 and at the Klovićevi Dvori Gallery in 2003-2004.
Text: Željko Marciuš museum consultant of the National Museum of Modern Art
Translated by: Robertina Tomić
Photo: Goran Vranić © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb