Contemporary Art Criticism, Interviews, Essays and Visual Politics
Mariuccia Secol is a pioneering Italian artist whose work connects feminist politics, motherhood, war, care and the struggle for women’s autonomy within the art system.
Born in Castellanza in 1929, Secol developed an artistic practice shaped by painting, textiles, domestic materials and collective feminist action. During the 1960s, she established painting and poetry workshops inside the psychiatric hospital in Bizzozero, near Varese, creating spaces in which patients could express themselves through images and words.
In the 1970s, she worked with Milli Gandini, Mirella Tognola and other artists associated with Varese’s Gruppo Immagine. The group addressed women’s economic independence, motherhood, domestic labour and the cultural structures of patriarchy through exhibitions, conferences and collective projects.
Secol participated in the 1978 Venice Biennale with Dalla creatività femminile come maternità-natura al controllo-ricerca della natura (From Female Creativity as Motherhood-Nature to the Control and Investigation of Nature). Her work has since been included in major exhibitions devoted to Italian feminism, care work and overlooked histories of women artists.
This archive brings together articles, interviews and critical resources about Mariuccia Secol, her feminist practice, Gruppo Immagine, the Venice Biennale and her contribution to Italian art history.
Read the full interview: Mariuccia Secol’s Feminist Lesson
Explore more articles in the Feminism archive.
Mariuccia Secol at the Venice Biennale, 1978. Courtesy of Artribune. At ninety-seven, Mariuccia Secol looks back on feminist art, psychiatric workshops, Gruppo Immagine, motherhood and the 1978 Venice Biennale.
Read More