Snail Rider, 1970

Mario Avati   Famous Artists

Mario Avati (1921-2009) is a French painter and engraver, remembered as the foremost mezzotint artist, after Yozo Hamaguchi. After attending the National School of Decorative Arts in Nice and the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, Mario Avati practiced, from 1947, all printmaking techniques, contributing to the revival of graphic techniques as popular artists' media. 

Ten years later, he turned, almost exclusively, towards the black way2, first in black, then, from 1969, in color. In doing so, he helped revive this graphic technique as a medium for popular expression.

His favorite graphic technique, applied to his timeless still lifes, is the mezzotint, among the most demanding, abandoned because it was "too difficult", but with the final result of an emerging image from a deep black "nothingness". Avati's international fame is confirmed by numerous awards, documentary films made in Japan, in the USA and in Europe and an uncountable number of participations in exhibitions and art events all over the world.