Titina Maselli is a leading figure in twentieth-century Italian art. Her large-format works plunge us into nights on canvas one recognizes at first glance: the movement, speed and energy that characterize the post-war period through to the Pop years. Maselli treats the relationship between space and light with the genius of an unrivalled colourist and ignites the legacy of the Italian avant-garde. Her body of work have a rightful place in the gallery’s program, which we decided to dedicate to the XXth century the Avant-Garde.
Born in Rome in 1924 into a family of artists and intellectuals, her father, a philosopher and art critic, encourages her to paint from an early age. It is in Rome in 1948, at the age of 24, that she exhibits her work for the first time. She is soon noticed by the Italian writer Renzo Vespignani, who says her creations reflect “the passions of a generation still acerbic, but already tested by fear and despair”.
Maselli paints the archetypes of her time: “I wasn’t interested in imperial Rome, I was looking for modern Rome, and I felt I could discover it at night”, she would later say of her early research. These nocturnal cities reveal remnants of an overlooked reality, they are criss-crossed by a geometry of lines and urban networks in which the streets awaken under the vibrant glow of neon lights.
Maselli’s modernity breaks up the landscape to the point of obliterating nature and focuses on movement alone. Her Metropolis is a stage for footballers, boxers and cyclists who break through its concrete walls more than they make their way around it.
Titina Maselli took part in the Venice Biennale four times and exhibited in several European cities.
From 1952 to 1955, she lived in New York, confronting the Pop Art movement from which she wanted to differentiate herself: “These young artists wanted to paint the object itself. I, on the other hand, intend to paint conflicts”. This conflict between men and their environment, which she ceaselessly tries to sow, to surpass in energy, speed and strength, would later become central to her work, as she designed the sets for numerous films.
In the 70s, she moved to Paris, where the theatre and opera welcomed her and made her a household name. Collaborating with great directors such as Jean Jourdheuil, Brigitte Jaques and, above all, Bernard Sobel, with whom she worked on twenty creations between 1980 and 2003, mainly designing sets and costumes: Va-et-vient and Pas moi by Samuel Beckett (1980), Le Cyclope, an opera by Betsy Jolas based on Euripides (1986), Les Géants de la montagne by Luigi Pirandello (1994).
In 2003, for the Aix-En-Provence Festival, she designed the sets for Stravinsky’s Renard, directed by Grüber and conducted by Pierre Boulez.
Maselli died on February 22, 2005 at her home in Rome. Her exhibitions and retrospectives at the Rome Quadriennale, the Salons de la jeune peinture and A.R.C. in Paris, the Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon, the Kunstamt Kreuzberg in Berlin and the Fondation Maeght in Saint-Paul-de-Vence (1972) attest to her creativity. To mark her 100th birthday, two retrospectives, featuring works from public and private collections, are being organized simultaneously in Rome at the Casino dei Principi in Villa Torlonia and at the Museo Laboratorio d’Arte Contemporanea at Sapienza University until April 2025.