Grace Kelly, 2014

Marin Marcos  

Marcos Marin was born in Brazil in 1967, to a cinema producer father and a mother who was an opera singer. At the age of five Marcos started to take classical piano lessons at the Sao Paulo Conservatory. He started a career as a virtuoso pianist at an early age and went on to study music in France, in Angers. In parallel, he developed a passion for painting.

In 1990, Marcos met Victor Vasarely at the Cité des Arts in Paris. Intrigued by his work, Marcos Marin embarked on the adventure of optical art. He was awarded with the Fiat Prize for his portrait of Christopher Columbus, produced for the 500th anniversary of the discovery of America at the Fiat Museum in Turin and with the Philips collection prize for his reinterpretation of Mona Lisa. In the 1990s, Marcos Marin played an important role in the cultural relations between Brazil and France, through his activity with IAA UNESCO.

In 2000, he moved to the US and got a studio in Miami Beach. In 2003 he produced his first monumental sculpture exhibited at the Coconut Grove Convention Center on the occasion of the Arteamericas art fair. The work was exhibited in the "Best of Florida" show in Boca Raton.

Marcos Marin met Delphine Pastor in In 2004 at Art Basel, and she invited him to show his work in Monaco. He exhibited a magnificent portrait of Princess Grace, kept today at the new Museum of Monaco. A few days after Prince Rainier's death, Prince Albert commissioned Marcos Marin to produce the official monument dedicated to his father. This monumental work was unveiled on 18 January 2006 at the entrance of the Chapiteau de Fontvieille.

In 2006, Marcos Marin met designer and patron Pierre Cardin, who offered him the possibility to produce large-format works in the studio of Lacoste, in the South of France. Marcos Marin also worked in Portugal with Stanley Ho as part of the fiftieth anniversary of the Estoril Casino. In 2009, Marcos Marin was invited to Japan for the "one century Brazil-Japan friendship" events, and received the a medal recognizing his "lifetime achievement".