Pasquarosa Marcelli began her career as an artists’ model, posing for clients including the painter Nino Bertoletti, whom she later married. By the early 1910s she had dropped her surname, taught herself how to paint and was working as an artist herself. In 1915, she painted the artist Felice Carena, for whom she had previously modelled. Pasquarosa focused largely on still lifes of everyday scenes, loosely rendered in a vivid palette that speaks to the influence of Fauvism. Some 50 of her paintings and drawings are on show at the Estorick Collection in London, on loan from private collections and the Nino and Pasquarosa Bertoletti Archive in Rome (12 January–12 April). Find out more from the Estorick Collection’s website.
Preview below | View Apollo’s Art Diary
Pink Cineraria (1918), Pasquarosa. Courtesy Archivio Nino e Pasquarosa Bertoletti, Rome
Still Life with Cat (1918), Pasquarosa. Courtesy Archivio Nino e Pasquarosa Bertoletti, Rome
Small Nude (c. 1913), Pasquarosa. Courtesy Archivio Nino e Pasquarosa Bertoletti, Rome