Joyful Self-Portrait (1932/1932) by Mario RadicePinacoteca civica di Como
Mario Radice
Among the group of Como artists linked to the leading figure of Giuseppe Terragni, Mario Radice (Como, 1898-1987) stands out for the completeness and complexity of this work. Leader of the Como abstract group, Radice was an abstract and, at the same time, a figurative artist.
Together with illustrious architects such as Cesare Cattaneo, Pietro Lingeri, Ico Parisi and Luigi Zuccoli, he designed sculptures and paintings of notable architectural value. He was a theorist, art critic, essayist, exhibition curator and a profoundly ethical and moral man.
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The Casa del Fascio
His considerable artistic production found its crucial moment, as pivot and hinge for his entire subsequent career, in the panels for Terragni's Casa del Fascio (1932-1936). Radice was asked by his friend the architect, on Marcello Nizzoli's advice, to complete the complex project for the building with a series of interior paintings which should be fully integrated with the architecture for a design continuum.
Composition C.F.T. 66 (1935) by Mario RadicePinacoteca civica di Como
This commission, given to him between 1935 and 1936, when the building was completed, consisted in a series of abstract plastic compositions based on a Cartesian grid into which were inserted texts taken from Mussolini's writings and speeches. These were of a revolutionary anti-bourgeois nature, and had an emphatic propaganda value.
Composition C.F. 123B by Mario RadicePinacoteca civica di Como
The compositions were based on intersections of straight lines. They were designed according to the perfect proportions dictated by the golden section, with intersections taking place on different planes with flat colour backgrounds, creating a grid like an advertising layout.
Paintings for the Casa del Fascio (1935/1937) by Mario RadicePinacoteca civica di Como
The first work is for the Sala del Direttorio: two large panels in polychrome bas-relief painted in fresco, placed on opposite walls, one of which is completed by an enormous half-bust portrait of Mussolini painted using a photomechanical process on enamelled sheet metal.
Despite the presence of the figure of the Duce, the panel appears as an abstract composition to which the ceiling lighting system, also by Radice, is linked, and readable as the abstract transposition of a fascio or fasces.
In the large Adunate hall, on the ground floor, there is a monolithic stele in Musso marble with the words Order Authority Justice drilled on it. To one side is a suspended panel with two glass plates enclosing a photomechanical image of the Duce wearing a helmet.
Study for a composition (Casa del Fascio) (1932) by Mario RadicePinacoteca civica di Como
Hanging under the balcony, behind the stele, are three perforated panels in reinforced concrete painted with frescoes of geometric compositions and phrases by Mussolini, supported by cantilevered iron structures attached to pillars.
Prospective study of the fresco work for the hall of Direttorio (Casa del Fascio) (1936) by Mario RadicePinacoteca civica di Como
On the side walls of the hall are three more panels, two in cement painted in fresco, the third in marble with engraved text. he creation of these decorations took so long and was so laborious that in October 1936, when issue 35-36 of the magazine “Quadrante” came out, a journal entirely dedicated to the Casa del Fascio, only the Direttorio room (where the chandelier is still missing) and the stele in the Adunate hall had been completed.
Interior of the meeting hall (Casa del Fascio) (1936) by Mario RadicePinacoteca civica di Como
Composition R3C (1940) by Mario RadicePinacoteca civica di Como
The panels in the hall were installed in 1937. All these works were destroyed after 1943. Fortunately, the countless studies, sketches and preparatory drawings, as well as numerous contemporary and subsequent works that take up, alter or rethink the subject, have come down to us as evidence of the importance and richness of these creations.
Study for the chandelier of the hall of the Direttorio (Casa del Fascio) (1936) by Mario RadicePinacoteca civica di Como
A large part of these works was donated to the Pinacoteca di Como and forms the core of the permanent exhibition dedicated to Mario Radice.
Taken from the text by Roberta Liettim in Pinacoteca Civica di Como - Selected works, Electa, 2021
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