Jennifer S. Griffiths - Marisa Mori and the Futurists: A Woman Artist in an Age of Fascism

Marisa Mori and the Futurists

Visual Cultures and Italian Contexts

Series Editor

Dr. Sharon Hecker, Independent Art Historian

Visual Cultures and Italian Contexts publishes innovative research into visual culture in modernist Italy, as well as in diasporic linguistic and cultural communities beyond this particular geographic, historic, and political boundary. The series invites cutting-edge scholarship by academics, curators, architects, artists, and designers across all media forms; it engages with traditional methods in visual culture analysis, as well as inventive interdisciplinary approaches, and seeks to encourage a dialogue among scholars in core disciplines with those pursuing innovative interdisciplinary and intermedial research.

Advisory Board

Romy Golan, The Graduate Center, New York, USA

Ara Merjian, New York University, USA

Paolo Scrivano, Politecnico di Milano, Italy

Arianna Arisi Rota, Universit di Pavia, Italy

Elena Dellapiana, Politecnico di Torino, Italy

Rosetta Caponetto, Auburn University, USA

Noa Steimatsky, Film Historian, USA

Lucia Re, UCLA, USA

Proposals for monographs, edited volumes, and outstanding scholarly studies by established as well as emerging writers from a wide range of comparative, theoretical, and methodological perspectives are welcome, especially those on colonialism, race, sexuality, gender, politics, and material history in twentieth- and twenty-first-century contexts.

Titles in the Series

Curating Fascism: Exhibitions and Memory from the Fall of Mussolini to Today, edited by

Sharon Hecker and Raffaele Bedarida

Marisa Mori and the Futurists

A Woman Artist in an Age of Fascism

Jennifer S. Griffiths

It was Terry Rossi Kirk whose contagious passion for the art and architecture of Italy filled me with a desire to know and inspired me to be an art historian. I am grateful that I was subsequently mentored by two brilliant figures of feminist art history, Mary Garrard and Norma Broude, at American University. My curiosity about Futurisms complex relationship to women and gender began as an intern at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, where I spent time pondering Umberto Boccionis Materia (1912). I will always be grateful for Peggys legacy. This project grew out of my doctoral dissertation at Bryn Mawr College, where I found support from professors David Cast, Roberta Ricci, Lisa Saltzman, and Dale Kinney.

At every stage, this project moved forward, thanks to timely encouragement and support from colleagues. I decided to concentrate on Marisa Mori, thanks to a conversation with Sharon Hecker. I am grateful to John Champagne and Paula Birnbaum for their advocacy. Many thanks also to Gnter Berghaus and Claudia Salaris who read this manuscript and generously offered their expert feedback. Alex Standen helped me with translational matters. A research grant from the American Philosophical Society and a publication grant from the Italian Art Society provided financial support for the completion of this manuscript.

I am profoundly indebted to Drs. Franco and Gina Mori, to their two daughters Silvia and Laura, and to their grandchildren Margherita and Simone, for having opened the doors of their Florentine home to me and trusting me with precious personal archival materials. This book is in part dedicated to the memories of Franco and Silvia, who did not live to see it completed. I also wish to thank Anna Malvano for telling me about her mother, Nella Marchesini, and for sharing an afternoon with me in her familys Turin archive of paintings and letters. Thanks also to Marco Viglino in Turin and Monica Cardarelli of the Galleria del Laocoonte in Rome. Photographer Zoey Wilson is responsible for all photographs from the Mori Archive. I also wish to thank Alessandro Sagramora of the Archivio Biblioteca Quadriennale di Roma, Federico Zanoner of the Museo di Arte Rovereto e Trento, and Luca Bochicchio of the Archivio Tullio dAlbisola for helping me to clarify various details.

A special thank-you to my beloved husband who made it possible for me to have two small children while bringing this project to completion. Supportive communities, networks, and partnerships permit women to achieve their professional goals despite the challenges of motherhood.

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