Antonio Marasco

Antonio Marasco was born on 11 May 1896 in Nicastro, Calabria, now part of Lamezia Terme. His family moved to Florence in 1906. He completed technical schooling before enrolling at the Liceo Artistico in Florence in 1912, and later studied at the city's Accademia di Belle Arti under the painter Galileo Chini. Around 1913 he moved into the Florentine avant-garde circles associated with the journals Lacerba and L'Italia Futurista, and aligned himself with Marinetti's Futurist movement.

He exhibited within Futurist circles, showing a portrait of Marinetti at the 1927 "Mostra di trentaquattro pittori futuristi" at Galleria Pesaro in Milan. He went on to exhibit at three consecutive editions of the Venice Biennale: in 1928 with "Aeroplani," and in 1930 and 1932, the latter with "Aeropittura I" and "Aeropittura II." In 1932 he founded the Movimento Futurista Indipendente and was associated with the manifesto "Supremazia futurista."

According to the Italian outlet Barbadillo, following his wartime association with the Italian Social Republic, Marasco was tried and found guilty of collaboration, a detail corroborated by only one source available for this profile. He moved to Rome in 1949, where he continued to exhibit in various galleries. He died in Florence on 8 April 1975, at age 78, about a month short of what would have been his seventy-ninth birthday.

Marasco is studied primarily within the history of Italian Futurism rather than in broader international criticism. He is documented as the founder of the Movimento Futurista Indipendente in 1932 and participated in three consecutive Venice Biennale editions, in 1928, 1930, and 1932, exhibiting aeropittura subjects such as "Aeroplani" and the paired "Aeropittura I" and "Aeropittura II," placing him within the movement's aerial phase alongside better known aeropittura painters. Beyond these institutional and biographical markers, no substantial body of named critical commentary in major outlets has surfaced in the available record.

Marasco's market is small and concentrated in Italian auction houses. Public listings show mixed results: a Pandolfini lot with an estimate of EUR 1,500 to 2,500 is marked sold, though the realized price is not published on the listing, and separate LiveAuctioneers lots estimated at EUR 8,000 to 15,000 and EUR 1,000 to 2,000 were both marked as passed, meaning they did not sell. Artnet and MutualArt track auction results for the artist, but detailed lot level prices sit behind a paywall and could not be verified for this profile. No single result could be confirmed as an all-time auction record with a title, price, currency, house, and date, and no current gallery or estate representation is documented. Collectors should treat any claimed record price for Marasco with caution until it is confirmed against a primary auction house record.

No catalogue raisonne exists for Marasco, and verification of individual works relies on provenance and the judgment of specialist Italian dealers and auction houses. His auction market is thin and inconsistently documented, and no reliable all-time record price could be confirmed from public sources. Collectors should independently verify sale details before treating any reported price as a market benchmark, and should expect his market to trade primarily within Italy rather than at international sale rooms.