Francesco MARINO DI TEANA (1920-2012) UNIVERSITY... Lot 109

Francesco MARINO DI TEANA (1920-2012) UNIVERSITY 1958 - 63 Corten steel Edition of 2008 Signed with the artist's mark Dated 1958 and numbered 8 ex. + 4 EA H. 300 x W. 246.5 x D. 228 cm Referenced in the artist's catalog raisonné, page 213 under number 535 MDT Sc Univ158 Co300.08 100000/120000 FRANCESCO MARINO DI TEANA Sculptor, painter and architect Born in 1920 in Teana (Italy) - Died in 2012 in Périgny (Val de Marne) By turns shepherd and apprentice mason in Italy, site manager, architect and teacher at the Fine Arts School in Buenos Aires (Argentina), Francesco MARINO DI TEANA settled in Paris in 1953. He is a painter, sculptor, architect, poet and philosopher, architect, poet and philosopher, his work is built on the themes of and architectural sculpture. Represented for over twenty years by the legendary Galerie Denise René, where he exhibited alongside prestigious artists of the time (Vasarely, Jesús-Rafael Julio Le Parc, Sonia Delaunay, François Morellet, Carlos Cruz-Díez Cruz-Díez, Richard Mortensen...) he became very close to artists such as Yaacov Agam, Jean Arp, Jean Tinguely, Jean Dubuffet, César and Luis Tomasello, and developed a great fascination with architects. Winner of prestigious art prizes, he was recognized by the greatest creators and art and art critics of his time after winning first prize in the 1962 competition competition organized by Saint-Gobain. Precursor to the Monumenta at the Grand Palais (Monumental Fountains, H.9 m x L.16 m in collaboration with with Saint-Gobain), he created over 40 monumental sculptures throughout in France, including La Liberté (Fontenay-sous-Bois, Val de Marne), long considered to be Europe's largest steel sculpture, at 21 meters high and weighing over for over 100 tons of Corten steel. After a series of major exhibitions exhibitions in France in the mid-1970s, the artist was named Chevalier de l'Ordre des Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and honored during a touring exhibition culminating in a major retrospective at the Musée d'Art Moderne in Paris in 1976. In 1982, Argentina asked him to represent the country at the at the 40th Venice Biennale, and was awarded the Prix de l'Académie des Beaux-Arts in 2009. Francesco Marino Di Teana died in 2012, leaving behind him a considerable legacy. The Francesco Marino Di Teana Committee, represented by his son Nicolas, who worked alongside him for more than ten years, remains as active as ever to defend, promote and safeguard his work. In particular, he has the publication of the artist's Catalogue Raisonné by Éditions LOFT in December 2018, and the preservation of the artist's studio, which still houses today a varied corpus of drawings,