Mario de Maria was an Italian painter, photographer, architect and illustrator. Although he originally wanted to become a musician and attended the conservatory in Bologna, he switched to the art academy in 1872 where he studied under the history painter and portraitist Antonio Puccinelli. From 1878, he studied in Paris and London. He finally settled in Rome, where he joined the artists' group In Arte Libertas. He made a name for himself when he exhibited eighteen works at the group's first exhibition in 1885. In the 1880s, de Maria experimented with photography. He used his photographs partly as preparatory studies for his paintings. In 1892, he moved to Venice, where he remained until the end of his life. There he took on the artist's name Marius Pictor. His works, both paintings and photographs, as well as his self-designed house in Venice bear witness to the spirit of the fin de siécle - many of his works are influenced by the writings of Gabriele D'Annunzio, Charles Baudelaire and Edgar Allen Poe. In 1895, he designed the first draft for the Italian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, which was built with slight modifications but replaced by a new building in 1914. Two years after de Maria's death, the Biennale dedicated a monographic exhibition to him, showing 31 paintings and eighteen drawings.