Multi-coloured lithograph, 520x392 mm on sheet 645x496, executed on Arches paper, signed in lapis Marino in lower right and numbered 8/75 in lapis in lower left margin. Edition of 3 named copies, 10 numbered I-X on Japon paper, 75 numbered 1-75 and 25 out-of-commerce numbered XI-XXXV. Very good full-margin specimen with slight browning to margins. The subject depicts stylised, geometric jugglers on a grey background; this is the same subject depicted a year earlier, in 1973 with mixed media on canvas and paper. Born in 1901 in Pistoia, Marini was educated in the painting of the great art of the Renaissance in Florence at the Academy of Fine Arts in the same city. He depicted subjects of everyday life, such as flowers, birds and insects, and also made sculptures of them. Marini worked assiduously experimenting with different materials, from wood to plaster combined with paint, sometimes combining it with bronze in order to accentuate forms and express movement. In 1928, he went to Paris where he debuted as a sculptor and studied with Picasso and other masters of modern art. He also collaborated with Henry Moore, among others. Marini later returned to Italy, settling in Milan, and in the following years his artistic temperament was strongly influenced by the suffering endured by Italy as a whole during the war. In 1950, having earned the esteem of international critics, his work was defined as part of a 'new Renaissance of sculpture in Italy, the new humanist, the new reality'. Marini's works express a simplicity that is elementary and circumscribed, with the exception of some portraits, to three themes: the female figure, the horseman often accompanied by his horse, and dancers or jugglers. The dancer, like the juggler, represents the author's emotional escape from the rigid moral paths depicted in his subjects such as horses and riders. In a certain sense, it can be said that the artist intended to convey a need for light-heartedness in subjects such as jugglers and dancers, distancing himself for a few moments from the severe analysis of human turmoil. Marini gained his international fame in the 1950s with three major exhibitions of his work held in Amsterdam, Brussels and New York, where the 'Great Horse' found a place in the Rockefeller collection. His best known work is the large bronze horse with rider commissioned for the Guggenheim Museum in Venice. Marini's artistic production lasted for 60 years and was hosted in exhibitions in the most important cities of the world. Guastalla, Marino Marini, catalogue raisonné of graphic works, L 119