Al Casino dei Principi of Villa Torloniaopen to the public up
to November 2, 2025 the exhibition “Mario Mafai and Antonietta Raphaël. Another form of love”, that fifty years after the death of Antonietta Raphaël and sixty from that of Mario Mafaiproposes a new reflection on the two artists considered among the protagonists of the artistic events of the twentieth century.
The exhibition, promoted by Roma Capitale, Department of Culture – Capitoline Superintendency for Cultural Heritageis conceived by Mafai Raphaël Study Center and edited by Valerio Rivosecchi and from Serena de Dominiciswith the organization and museum services of Zètema Culture Project.
From the late 1920s, characterized by the expressive intensity culminating in the partnership defined by Roberto Longhi the “school of via Cavour”, Mario and Antonietta follow parallel but often also divergent paths, strongly conditioned by the historical reality. Mario is soon considered an undisputed master, a point of reference for the environment 
Roman artistic, maintaining its prestige even in the strict post -war years. Pictorial series such as i Dry flowersthe Demolitionsthe Fantasies They represent the most authentic and antiretoric face of Italian culture since their first appearance.
The fate of Antonietta, Lithuanian of Jewish origins, exposed to gender prejudices, forced to leave Rome over the years of racial laws and war, will live long periods of solitary research. The discovery of his talent will take place only from the 1950s with gradually wider awards than his role in the definition of an anti -agent line, of his original sculptural work and the last on e
Happy pictorial season in the sixties.
The exhibition tells an artistic, intellectual and sentimental story, based on differences but also on a thin plot of exchanges, ideas and common passions, capable of transforming every event of the lived reality into poetry.
The exhibition itinerary comprehends pictorial and sculptural works coming, as well as from the collections of the Capitoline Superintendency, but also from National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Artcome on Florentine civic museumsfrom the art collections of the Chamber of Deputies and of the Bank of Italyby numerous private collections and from Collections of the heirs of the two artists, with the presence of a rare and selected Original documentation made up of letters, drawings, photographscoming from family archivesfrom the Mafai Raphaël Study Centerfrom the Vieusseux cabinet of Florence e
fromRoman school archive of superintendency.
The exhibition is also organized thanks to the collaboration of: Augusto and Francesca Giovanardi collection of Milan, Giuseppe Iannaccone collectionMilan, and of Civic Museum “Maria Maddalena Rossi” of Codevilla (PV).
The beyond One hundred works presented – some of which are unpublished and others rarely exposed – they wind on the two plans of the Casino dei Principi along a path marked in Seven thematic sections To offer an overview of the work of both artists and a comparison to highlight their fruitful differences.
The sections of the exhibition. The first section, The “School of via Cavour”he is “historical” and frames the early years, decisive, of the meeting of Mario, Antonietta and Scipione (Gino Bonichi), the change of step largely determined by the action of cultural and pictorial stimulus carried out by Raphaël, the first successes. Next to those of Mafai and Raphaël, two works by Scipione are also exhibited.
The room of the views on the ground floor welcomes Antonietta sculptures, including some unreleased new discovery, highlighting the thematic node offered by the relationship between female, maternity/creation and escapewith incursions in myth. Among the works on display also theAnguish n.2 (1936-1963)-here exposed for the first time-result of the laborious translation in porphical stone of a plaster of 1936.
Still on the ground floor, the section Musical interlude presents some works to testify to the passion
shared by Antonietta and Mario for music, which returns to various works, such as the paintings Dead nature with guitar (1928) e The plan lesson (1934).
To follow, the section A silent challenge It emphasizes the comparison between Mafai and Raphaël and on how the two, while sharing some themes – drawings, portraits and self -portraits, naked and still lifes – then followed deliberately divergent roads, solving the same themes with distant formal solutions. Among the portraits also the unpublished Portrait of Simonapainted by Mario in 1932 and exhibited here for the first time. Within the same section, a video offers interviews and documentaries on the two artists.
The central room of the first floor is dedicated to Mario Mafai. Guiding thread, the “metamorphosis”concept exemplified in the slip from the figurative to the abstract through some of the main stylistic passages of maturity, from the “tonal” phase, full of enchantment and melancholy, of the early 1930s, to the expressionist vein of the Fantasiesat the realist moment of the Markets post -war, up to the abstract and informal research of recent years. The exhibition itinerary continues with the section Antonietta Raphaël. A journey into identity and beyond Reserved for sculptures and paintings by Antonietta who convey the complex identity of the artist to whose training many cultural factors contributed, in particular Jewish culture, a “nomadic” existence, travel to Sicily, Spain and China.
Finally, in the last room, to close the itinerary open from the great Portrait of Antonietta in the sculpture studio (1934) by Mafai, a single picture of Raphaël, Mario Nello Studio (tribute to Mafai) of 1966, contains all the energy of a life spent challenging and loving each other.
In the same space, a selection of autographed letters – the result of a research by Sara Scalianephew of the artists – and photographic materials return the human and artistic story of Mafai and Raphaël.
Carlo Franza