Benedetta Marinetti and the Postwar Market for Umberto Boccioni Sculptures

A century after the untimely death of Umberto Boccioni (1882–1916), his sculptures have achieved international renown through the multiple posthumous bronze casts in museum collections. The F. T. Marinetti and Benedetta Cappa Marinetti papers at the Getty Research Institute reveal greater detail on the confusing history of the creation and dissemination of those bronzes and the remaining Boccioni originals. They also make clear that Benedetta Cappa Marinetti (1897–1977) played an important role in transforming Boccioni’s postwar reputation through these sculptures. Far from a passive vendor, Benedetta’s activities in commissioning and selling Boccioni sculptures to important collections, maintaining high prices, overcoming difficulties with the import of bronze editions have resonance for our understanding of the revival of interest in futurism, particularly in the United States, in the late 1940s and 1950s, and changing ideas about the value of posthumous bronze.