(Nicastro, Catanzaro, 1896 – Florence 1975), painter, set designer, cultural promoter, moved with his family to Florence where he attended the Academy of Fine Arts. In 1913 he approached the circles of “Lacerba” and “L’ Italia Futurista,” adhering to the demands of the Marinetti movement. In 1914 he was invited by Marinetti to accompany him to Russia for a series of lectures and there he established relationships with leading figures of the Russian Cubo-Futurist avant-garde such as Malevič, Larioniov, and Majakovsky. Back in Florence he met Boccioni, hung out with Balla and Bragaglia, and joined the Futurist political fasces. He participated in numerous exhibitions in Italy and abroad and collaborated on the second series of the magazine “Noi” by sending in drawings and scenic sketches. In 1932 he founded the “Futurist Groups of Initiatives” in Florence, organically independent of the activities of the Marinettian Futurist movement from which he increasingly distanced himself. In the 1940s he turned toward the recovery of descriptive figuration to arrive, at the end of the 1950s, at an early informal experience. In the 1960s, he adhered to the declaration-manifesto of “Futurism-today” promoted by Enzo Benedetto and participated in exhibitions organized by the group.
The Antonio Marasco papers are divided into the following sections: Correspondence, which contains a letter from Marasco to Franca dated April 11, 1969; Press Review, which collects photocopies of articles on Marasco from the 1980s and 1990s; Library, which preserves pamphlets and catalogs of the artist’s solo exhibitions; Periodicals, with the newspapers “The Literate,” “The Review,” “The Sunday Novel,” and “Living.”
