Along with painters like Guttuso, Birolli, Scipione
and their predecessors Morandi and Casorati, Mario Mafai is one of the jewels in the crown of the Alberto Della Ragione Collection, now in the
Museo Novecento, Florence. His substantial presence attests to the interest of the engineer Della Ragione, an enlightened collector, in art that is attentive to life but allied with the emotions, close to the real world but also to dreams.
The catalogue contains all the works by the Roman painter now in the permanent collection of the Museo Novecento, including many landscapes, still lifes and nudes, created during the period around World War II, from the years of the Scuola Romana [Roman School], which Mafai shared with his wife, the artist Antonietta Raphaël, and his friend Scipione, up to the works made during the war attesting to the artist’s political and social commitment in defence of humankind.