Marini, Marino (1901-80), Italian sculptor and graphic artist, who excelled in figures of horses and riders. Born in Pistoia, Tuscany (Toscana), Marini received traditional training as a painter at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence. Influenced by ancient Italian, Etruscan, and Greek sculpture, he later studied sculpture in Paris. He taught (1929-40) at the Villa Reale School of Art in Monza. In 1936 Marini began to create a series of sculptures of horsemen inspired by figures from ancient Chinese tombs. In such works as Horseman (1952, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis) he blended a rude archaism of form with tragic poetic expressiveness. His preferred media were bronze, wood, and plaster. Marini also sculpted psychologically penetrating portraits, such as Igor Stravinsky (1950, San Francisco Museum of Fine Arts), and sensual figures of women.