Anna Marongiu Pernis

Anna Marongiu Pernis (Cagliari 1907 – Ostia 1941) was a multifaceted Sardinian artist, known for her work as a painter, engraver, and illustrator. One of the most interesting figures in Italian graphic art in the 1930s, she studied with Carlo Alberto Petrucci, director of the Calcografia Nazionale in Rome, specializing in the technique of etching, with which she created works of great technical finesse and intense expressiveness. The late 1920s and early 1930s were a period of remarkable works, such as the illustrations inspired by The Pickwick Club and the illustrations for William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. His most significant engravings include etchings dedicated to the circus and urban life, such as L’altalena dei pagliacci (The Clowns’ Swing), but also views of Cagliari and sacred themes, such as Crocifissione (Crucifixion) and Fuga in Egitto (Flight into Egypt), which show a great variety of themes and graphic quality.
In the last years of her life, she devoted herself to works created using the burin technique, until her tragic death in 1941 at the age of only thirty-four, on a flight back to Sardinia from Lido di Ostia.
The Prints Cabinet of the University Library of Cagliari is named after this extraordinary artist and houses around 57 of her engravings, together with the matrices of 34 works, donated by her family to preserve and promote her work.