Ario Artwork valuations, appraisals and auction estimates

Ariodante Marianni was born in 1922 in Naples and spent most of his life in Rome, eventually moving to Bracciano and then Borgo Ticino in the last years of his life. Despite financial difficulties, he managed to complete his studies, graduating in economics and later dedicating himself to acting and painting. Read the full biography

Ariodante Marianni was born in 1922 in Naples and spent most of his life in Rome, eventually moving to Bracciano and then Borgo Ticino in the last years of his life. Despite financial difficulties, he managed to complete his studies, graduating in economics and later dedicating himself to acting and painting. He was editor of the critical and literary magazine "Marsia" published in Rome from 1957 to 1959, as well as being Giuseppe Ungaretti's secretary and press officer for the Spoleto Festival in the 1970s. He also collaborated on various radio and television programs, and his poetry reading was put online by a friend, Giorgio Weiss. His poetic activity includes the composition of verses included in the volumes "State of the Art" (poems 1948-1962) and "A strange joy" (1982-2002). As regards his pictorial activity, he created works published under the pseudonym "Ario" which were exhibited in various collective exhibitions in Italy and abroad for a period of approximately 20 years. In the creation of his pictorial works the artist traced on paper nothing less than poems or stories, for him painting was in a certain sense another way of making literature. He demonstrated that he had an excellent hand in drawing and for this reason he represented, in the 1960s, an important exponent of the Roman school of abstractionism. His painting essentially followed two paths of twentieth-century abstractionism; on the one hand, in the canvases, he tries his hand at rational geometric construction using few colors and a precise design. On the other hand he takes the path of lyrical and dreamlike abstraction, relying on random images that gradually appear. He used to use typographical inks which were then left to dry on paper and then engraved with graffiti. Only when the work had reached a meaning for Ario was it interrupted. Ariodante Marianni died in 2007 at the age of 85.