Lino Marzulli Biography
Lino Marzulli was born in Sesto San Giovanni on 16 December 1929. His time was marked by the scream of the sirens of large industries. Since he was a boy he drew and learned about great artists within the limits allowed by a modest family. The difficult post-war situation did not allow him to undertake artistic studies towards which he felt a strong attraction. He then attended an industrial technical school which allowed him to work as a designer. In 1955 he enrolled at the Faruffini School of Art directed by Giovanni Fumagalli where, over the course of five years, he learned the profession of painter. These were years of intense contact between young Milanese artists, galleries, museums and theoretical art courses. In the early 1960s things happened that would change his life. He teaches color technique at the Rizzoli Institute in Milan and, with a first group of artists, begins to live in the "Quartiere delle Botteghe" of Sesto San Giovanni. During this stay he had the opportunity to get to know the critical and artistic militancy and the young Italian and foreign avant-gardes. He experiments with new materials and techniques while always pursuing the topic of painted painting. In recent years he made frequent trips to Italy and abroad with a long stay in Venice where he began his exhibition activity. He meets and frequents artists and people linked to the art world. In 1966 he moved his studio to Milan, first to Via Pontida, where he remained until 1968, the year in which, together with other artists, he entered the heart of the protest by occupying the Milan Triennale, and then to Via Fiori Chiari where he remained for almost twenty 'years. He carried out his work consistently, despite the fact that in those years the tendency of artists was directed towards the "rejection of bourgeois art". For Marzulli, a man of the left, making art is not a socio-political choice: proof of this is his notable production in that period, detached from formulas, but always within cultural battles. Since 1973, and for over thirty years, he has assiduously frequented the Cinque Terre, while maintaining Milan as his usual residence. In Riomaggiore he began to paint the rugged hills and the stormy sea that were already by Telemaco Signorini. His activity expands and there are countless collective and personal exhibitions. Use materials such as wood, plaster, etc. for painted objects, he makes large canvases and there are numerous mosaics, glass, frescoes and ceramics. Finally, the Marzulli of the last period was discovered in 1987 when he opened his new studio in via Maroncelli, also in Milan. The workshop becomes a point of reference for young artists, it covers the void left by the short-sightedness of our institutions and becomes a hotbed of painters in search of experience and visibility. Marzulli's studio hosts around twenty exhibitions of little-known artists and gives rise to debates, meetings and seminars on the theme of art. At the same time, the "master" continues his artistic research: the series of zodiac signs, paintings sectioned into small fragments, and the astonishing luminous stained glass windows that Marzulli creates in the Brescia glassworks are from this period. Lastly, the move to the large studio in Via Calabiana, also in Milan. Here Marzulli covers the last period of his work, one of the most fervent of his adventure as an artist. The considerable size of the studio allows him, more easily than in the past, to dedicate himself to large works for both public and private clients. The new premises, as previously, are an opportunity to host temporary exhibitions of artist friends as well as meetings and debates, continuing to conceive the workplace also as a moment of aggregation, exchange of ideas and friendship. He threw himself into his work with enthusiasm, which was cut short by his death in November 2007.
