Jennifer S. Griffiths completed a PhD in the History of Art at Bryn Mawr College, USA. She has been lecturing on Italian art in Italy for over a decade. Her articles on gender, art, and representation have appeared in the International Yearbook of Futurism Studies, Design and Culture, Woman’s Art Journal, Art Journal, Woman’s Studies Quarterly, Annali d’Italianistica, and elsewhere.
This volume broadens current debates on Futurism by offering a ground-breaking study on a female artist actively involved in the destruction and dismantling of consolidated feminine stereotypes in Italian art and society. Maris Mori deserves recognition for the exuberant dynamism and sensitivity of her painting. Griffiths’ critical reading based on solid documentary evidence offers a more precise chronology of her life and works and, above all, of her conceptual elaboration of the ‘feminine’, located by her in the creative power of the maternal body. This volume will prove invaluable for all scholars of Futurism, modern art and gender studies. * Günter Berghaus, General Editor of the Bibliographic Handbook of Futurism and Senior Research Fellow at the University of Bristol, UK * “The first English book on this unjustly neglected artist, and a delightful read, Marisa Mori and the Futurists will introduce Mori to a greater public and encourage further scholarship that understands feminism as a historical enterprise. Exploring the complexity of what a feminist intervention in modernism means, Griffiths’s book refuses to pin down, once and for all, the contributions of Mori—surely, a feminist gesture in itself.” * John Gerard Champagne, Professor of English, Pennsylvania State University, USA * This book is a well informed and thoughtful case study about an intriguing Italian futurist female artist, seen in the historical context of Italian fascism and analyzed through a powerful feminist lens. It is a welcome contribution to the growing body of criticism that is making Italian avant-garde women better known internationally. * Lucia Re, Research Professor of Italian, University of California, Los Angeles, USA *