Farewell to Lea Vergine: Enzo Mari's wife dies the day after her husband, per Covid

After design master Enzo Mari, art critic and curator Lea Vergine, Mari’s wife, also leaves us; she passed away at San Raffaele in Milan due to complications related to Covid-19, just a day after her life partner. She was 82 years old.

Born Lea Buoncristiano in Naples in 1938, Lea Vergine had left her hometown to move to Milan in the 1970s, and married Mari after a few years of cohabitation (a fact that, at the time, was quite unusual, so their relationship was also quite talked about, especially since Mari came from a previous marriage). In the course of her activity she curated several exhibitions and wrote important essays, some of which were fundamental to the themes she investigated. In the milieu she was then remembered for her iconic figure, with the white forelock framing her raven hair.

Her work was devoted to the avant-garde, especially women’s avant-garde: particular mention should be made of her Il corpo come linguaggio (1974), one of the first and most important texts devoted to body art in Italy, and the 1980 text entitled L’altra metà dell’avanguardia 1910-1940. Women Painters and Sculptors in the Historic Avant-Garde Movements, which reflected on the role of women in the avant-garde movements of the early twentieth century. In contrast, another important text, Programmed and Kinetic Art 1953-1963, dates from 1983. The Last Avant-Garde, one of the major books on kinetic art. In 2017 the publication of his last book, an autobiographical text entitled L’arte non è faccenda di persone perbene, written in collaboration with Chiara Gatti.

Photo: Lea Vergine in 2006. Ph. Ramak Fazel

Farewell to Lea Vergine: Enzo Mari's wife dies the day after her husband, per Covid

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