The Via Cavour School was part of a broader phenomenon, an interesting, original historical moment summed up by the name Scuola Romana (Roman School) which had a lasting influence on the Roman cultural milieu of this whole period.
The group was formed by Mario Mafai, Antonietta Raphaël, and Scipione, whose real name was Gino Bonichi.
Mario Mafai decided to devote himself to painting in the early 1920s, contrary to his family’s wishes.
In 1924, he befriended Scipione, with whom he attended the fine arts academy in Rome. Another student there was Antonietta Raphaël, a Lithuanian woman who had moved to Rome after living in London and Paris.
Passionate about music and painting, she was exuberant, lively, and nonconformist.
Mafai and Raphaël fell in love and stayed together for the rest of their lives. They had three daughters: the journalist Miriam Mafai, Simona, and Giulia.
Antonietta Raphaël was born in 1895 in a Jewish village in Lithuania now called Kaunas. In 1905, after the death of her rabbi father, she moved to London with her mother. London was a common destination for Eastern Jews fleeing Tsarist pogroms.
Antonietta began a nomadic existence dotted with journeys and escapes that years later found its ultimate expression in a sculpture called Escape from Sodom.
She knew all the European capitals, inadvertently educating herself on international and avant-garde art. She had contacts with the artists of the École de Paris.
Her influence on this trio of friends from the Roman academy was therefore substantial.
The Via Cavour School was formed around 1928-29. The name comes from the house-studio on Via Cavour where Mafai and Raphaël went to live in 1927.
Many of their artist friends visited them there, along with writers like Giuseppe Ungaretti and Leonardo Sinisgalli.
This inspired critic Roberto Longhi to coin the term Via Cavour School to label a very tight-knit group rather than an actual school.
The Via Cavour School sought out lost intimate spaces, glimpses of a forgotten, soon-to-be-erased Rome.
You have a work by Scipione and you want to sell it?
Call us at +39 3356585431 or send us a message on WhatsApp at +39 3356585431
YOU CAN TRUST US
The highest valuations, expertise, and reliability