One hundred years after his death on 18 March 1924, the Museo Ottocento Bologna celebrates the figure of the symbolist painter Mario De Maria , also known as " Marius Pictor ".

The exhibition Mario De Maria, “Marius Pictor” (1852-1924). Ombra dear , scheduled from 21 March to 30 June 2024 presents 70 paintings - among masterpieces, unpublished works and works rediscovered and specially restored by the Museo Ottocento Bologna - coming from prestigious Italian museum institutions (Uffizi Galleries in Florence, National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art in Rome, Gallery of Modern Art in Milan) and from collections national and international private companies.

A significant anthological exhibition - the first that attempts to organize an examination of De Maria's production - to understand and explore the singular path of the artist, a complex and tormented man, close friend of Gabriele D'Annunzio, father of "Italian Symbolism" or Spiritualist naturalism”, and among the pioneering founders of the Venice Biennale.

The exhibition, curated by Francesca Sinigaglia, is part of the Bologna pittrice | project The Long Nineteenth Century | 1796 – 1915, an initiative promoted by the Bologna Civic Museums Sector which will involve fifteen exhibition venues outlining a path in Bolognese painting from the Napoleonic age to the beginning of the Great War.

Ombra cara is structured in seven sections that retrace De Maria's life from his beginnings to his death. The path is outlined as a "story" through the words of the artist, at the center of the artistic changes of the end of the century. His words are taken from the handwritten letters he sent to his friend Vittore Grubicy de Dragon, today preserved in the Grubicy archive of the Mart in Rovereto and in the De Maria archive in the Library of the Correr Museum in Venice. Through them, the visitor will be able to get an idea of the artist's personality, always in conflict with himself and with others, but at the same time "refined and honest critic of his work" (Sinigaglia).

The exhibition itinerary starts from the first years of his training in Bologna to his Roman experience with D'Annunzio with the illustration of Isaotta Guttadauro, to the analysis of his personal contribution to the foundation of the Venice Biennale (several from this period are on display masterpieces, including the great painting The Moon Returning to Mother Earth (1903) of the Venice Foundation): his presence in the Sala del Sogno and the large solo exhibition of 1909, the links with Northern Europe and Rembrandt's painting. A particular section of the exhibition, the fourth, is dedicated to the death of his daughter Silvia, with the work Ombra cara (1911-1914) created in memory by his friend and colleague Vittore Grubicy de Dragon. The exhibition concludes by investigating the relationship between De Maria and the cities of Asolo and Bologna, with the series dedicated to the Putredine della Casa di Satana and the macabre narratives of the second half of the 1910s.