Iela Mari

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Iela Mari, born as Gabriela Ferrario (March 1931 – 29 January 2014), was an Italian, Milan-based illustrator and author of wordless children's books driven by a storyline consisting of only graphics, sometimes called "silent books." Gabriela (shortened to Iela) studied painting at Milan's Brera Academy, where she met her future husband, Enzo Mari, who was pursuing scenography at the time. They married in 1955. Iela Mari collaborated with her husband to publish her first book, The Red Balloon, in 1968. They worked together on more books and she went on to create others alone. The predominant feature of her books is their lack of words and how they tell simple and poetic stories based on the strength of graphic refinement. Mari's main idea was to use shapes and colors in an almost abstract way: the author was convinced that the thought of young children, to whom her work was addressed, proceeded by associations, and that this could allow them to develop selective attention while simultaneously stimulating their imaginations. She was "devising an image-based language for children." In 1968 with the publication of her first book, The Red Balloon, she said: "I would like to draw attention to the forms in relation to the bombardment of the images produced by television." For the books that Iela produced with Enzo, her name appeared as first author.