Anna Marongiu - Biography

Anna Marongiu, was born in 1907 in Cagliari (Sardinia) and died, before her time, in 1941 in an air-crash in Ostia, near Rome.

Anna Marongiu was an excellent painter. She painted portraits and landscapes with a great sensibility and strong personality and demonstrated even as a very young child a skill and dexterity beyond her years.

She studied painting in Cagliari and later at the English Academy in Rome. Professor Coromaldi was her first teacher of painting. It was however Professor Petrucci at the Calcografia of State in Rome, that initiated her into the copperplate printing technique. She quickly became a specialist in copper-etching (aqua fortis). In Rome she was in contact with many other artists of that period and she exhibited in many exhibitions at home and abroad: Bordeaux (1932), Riga(1935), Abbazia (1936), Athens (1937), Bucarest (1937), Central America(1939). In 1940 she took part in the “Exhibition of Modern Italian Etching(Rome)”. She had her first solo exhibition in 1938, in Cagliari.

Often, during her short life, she would return to Cagliari from Rome to visit her parents and at such times would find inspiration in the area and made many wonderful prints exploring Cagliari’s landscape.

Her artistic production included many categories of works and subject:

Print (copper-etching and graver), pen drawing, chalk, watercolour, oil

Landscapes
Cagliari’s views
Religious and Mythological works
Humorous and imaginative works

Illustrations (colours tables)

Promessi Sposi (Alessandro Manzoni)
Midsummer Night’s Dream (William Shakespeare)
The Pickwick Papers (Charles Dickens)

Decorative works

Gould Villa , Rome (1929)
Deutsche Social Circle, Rome (1929) (drawings)
Chapel of Traumatological Centre at Iglesias hospital (1939/40)(drawings)

The original tables of Pickwick’s circle are now kept at the Charles Dickens MuseumLondon.

The “Laboratory of print” in the Cagliari University Library’s has been dedicated to Anna Marongiu. It exhibits 57 of her prints (copper-etchings).

She tragically died in 1941 in Ostia in a seaplane accident during take off . She was only thirty-four

	Biography (*)

	Anna Marongiu, was born in 1907 in Cagliari (Sardinia) and died, before her time, in 1941 in an air-crash in Ostia, near Rome. Anna Marongiu was an excellent painter. She painted portraits and landscapes with a great sensibility and strong personality and demonstrated even as a very young child a skill and dexterity beyond her years. She studied painting in Cagliari and later at the English Academy in Rome. Professor Coromaldi was her first teacher of painting. It was however Professor Petrucci at the Calcografia of State in Rome, that initiated her into the copperplate printing technique. She quickly became a specialist in copper-etching (aqua fortis). In Rome she was in contact with many other artists of that period and she exhibited in many exhibitions at home and abroad: Bordeaux (1932), Riga(1935), Abbazia (1936), Athens (1937), Bucarest (1937), Central America(1939). In 1940 she took part in the “Exhibition of Modern Italian Etching(Rome)”. She had her first solo exhibition in 1938, in Cagliari. Often, during her short life, she would return to Cagliari from Rome to visit her parents and at such times would find inspiration in the area and made many wonderful prints exploring Cagliari’s landscape. Her artistic production included many categories of works and subject: Print (copper-etching and graver), pen drawing, chalk, watercolour, oil Landscapes Cagliari’s views Religious and Mythological works Humorous and imaginative works Illustrations (colours tables) Promessi Sposi (Alessandro Manzoni) Midsummer Night’s Dream (William Shakespeare) The Pickwick Papers (Charles Dickens) Decorative works Gould Villa , Rome (1929) Deutsche Social Circle, Rome (1929) (drawings) Chapel of Traumatological Centre at Iglesias hospital (1939/40)(drawings) The original tables of Pickwick’s circle are now kept at the Charles Dickens MuseumLondon. The “Laboratory of print” in the Cagliari University Library’s has been dedicated to Anna Marongiu. It exhibits 57 of her prints (copper-etchings). She tragically died in 1941 in Ostia in a seaplane accident during take off . She was only thirty-four

	(*) See also dictionary entry “Anna Marongiu”, in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, Istituto dell’Enciclopedia Italiana fondata da G. Treccani, vol. 70, Roma 2008, pp. 662 - 664.