Mario Nuti - l'Arte Come Testimonianza Civile. Opere dal 1948 al 1963. Mario Nuti - the Art as Civic Testimony. Works From 1948 To 1963

Mario Nuti joined the Classical Abstractionists' group, that of Berti, Brunetti, Monnini, and Nativi, in 1948, but his path in art set out from the figurative sphere; he drank at the trough of Masaccio, obviously, but also of Carena, Casorati, Vagnetti, Sironi. Together with Berti's, Nuti's was the most well-fleshed and mature figurative framework to be found among the abstractionists of the Classical group.
In fact, the works of his neo-Cubist period demonstrate a solid structure which, despite the destructuring, solidly fuses the image to a centripetal nucleus. Ultimately, as an abstract painter Nuti couldn't (or wouldn't) divorce himself from the figure, and as a figurative painter, was unable to forget abstraction. Not that, on this account, his painting was unresolved, or hybrid; quite the opposite: in the end, what resulted was a formal enhancement; enrichment on a not-purely-theoretical plane.
His painting was born of painting, always, and not from theoretical assumptions - which at that time prevailed - or from ideological diktats. Perhaps this was why, when the group broke up in 1950, Nuti's return to the figure was slow, very slow, and meditated, transitioning through an informal dense with matter, humours, and expletives escaping clenched teeth.