On the occasion of Marino Marini’s retrospective, Horses and riders , extended until March 10, 2013, the MAN Museum is pleased to announce the opening of a new exhibition project dedicated to the equestrian theme: Giovanni Nonnis: SOS cabaddos .

Born in 1929, Nonnis played an important role in the post-war Sardinian artistic context. Influenced at a young age by the painters Pietro Antonio Manca and Giuseppe Biasi, over the course of his career he developed an original language characterized by a marked expressiveness, with stylized features and bright, contrasting chrome.

Known above all for his paintings of warriors inspired by Nuragic statuary, between the end of the 1950s and 1975, the year of the painter’s death, who died prematurely in a road accident, Nonnis created a large series of drawings and paintings on paper depicting horses in movement. Compared to the paintings of warriors, where the themes of myth and fairy tales are treated, Nonnis’ horses carry out a parallel, more sober and immediate research, in line with the stylistic solutions developed in 1959 within the Crucifixions cycle .

The Casa Lai exhibition complex in Gavoi will host around fifty works, many of which are unpublished, coming from the collection of Pier Paola Nonnis, Giovanni’s daughter, and from other private collections. Open to the public on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, the exhibition will be accompanied by a critical text by Enzo Avanzi.