RIP Giulia Mafai

 

Giulia Mafai, costume designer and set designer of the great Italian cinema, has died. She was the sister of Miriam and Simona and witnessed the Shoah She was 91, she worked with De Sica, Mastroianni and Sophia Loren. As a young girl she suffered the abomination of racial laws

La Repubblica

September 26, 2021

Giulia Mafai, the third daughter of Mario Mafai and Antonietta Raphaël, sister of the journalist and writer Miriam and the communist senator Simona, both died years ago. Internationally renowned costume designer and set designer, she had therefore experienced firsthand the abomination of racial laws and subsequent persecution. A destiny that she shared with her mother, an extraordinary artist who will soon be remembered in an exhibition in preparation for the Galleria Nazionale in Rome, and with her older sisters.

In her career, Giulia Mafai has worked with various post-war directors and actors, from Vittorio De Sica to Mario Monicelli, from Sophia Loren to Marcello Mastroianni. And again, Elliott Gould, Harvey Keitel, Keith Carradine. She was the creator and curator of the Venice Carnival Laboratory from 1978 to 1985. She collaborated with the Pioneer between 1950 and 1951, publishing texts, illustrations and comics including "Sambo" (1951), "Do You Know Animals?" (1951) and "The King Called Donkey EEars" (1951).

A sculpture created in 1936, entitled The three sisters, immortalizes her together with Miriam and Simona: the writer reads a book, while Simona and Giulia listen attentively. “A simple and serene gesture, repeated who knows how many times in Jewish homes,” Giulia recently commented. "The story could end here, but the drama is upon us: in 1938 racist laws are enacted and all certainty, all sweetness, the dream of a future is destroyed in all Jewish homes."

Hence the decision to donate the work to the Shoah Museum Foundation, on the occasion of the past edition of the European Day of Jewish Culture. "To the memory of the lives destroyed before even starting to live, to the memory of all that could have been and that was destroyed by human cruelty, we place this memory", the message that accompanied this action.

Giulia Mafai was also the author of books. The Girl with the Violin, among others, focuses on her mother. An intimate and poignant testimony. “For years - she reads - I believed that my mother was absolutely unique, completely different from all mothers, from all women I had ever had the opportunity to meet. She is different in everything: in the language with an absurd accent and so abstrusely constructed, in the severe and without appeal judgments, in the uncommon appearance, in the lack of make-up, in the curious and extravagant way of dressing. In absolute indifference to the judgment of others." Be the reminder of her blessing.

MAFAI, Giulia

Born: 1/13/1930, Rome, Lazio, Italy

Died: 9/26/2021, Rome, Lazio, Italy

 

Giulia Mafai’s westerns: costume designer, set decorator, production designer, art director, wardrobe:

The Ruthless Four – 1965 [costume designer]

Yankee – 1966 [costume designer, set designer]

Death Walks in Laredo – 1967 [set designer, wardrobe]

Two Faces of the Dollar – 1967 [production designer, set designer]

A Hole in the Forehead – 1968 [set designer, art drector]

I’ll Sell My Skin Dearly – 1968 [costume designer, production designer]

The Stranger’s Gundown -1969 [costume designer, set designer]

Roy Colt and Winchester Jack – 1970 [costume designer]

Shango – 1970 [art director]

Kill Django… Kill First – 1971 [costume designer, production designer]