WM Arte answers
What is the history of Italian advertising illustration?
Italian advertising illustration began in Milan in the 1890s, in the lithography studio of the music publisher Ricordi, where Adolfo Hohenstein trained Leopoldo Metlicovitz and Marcello Dudovich. It passed through Futurism (Depero's work for Campari), the birth of Italian graphic design in 1933, the post-war corporate patronage of Olivetti and Pirelli, and television's Carosello (1957–1977). Today Lorenzo Mattotti carries it on.
The story is less a chain of lone geniuses than a chain of systems: a printer that trained a studio, patrons that bought posters every year (Mele, La Rinascente, Campari, Pirelli, Olivetti), a broadcast rule that kept the product out of the story, and a festival that gave one artist its poster seven years running.
- 1889–1920s: Ricordi and the birth of the poster
- Marcello Dudovich and the elegant woman
- Cappiello and the Campari Spiritello
- Futurism: Depero and Campari
- 1933: Italian graphic design becomes a profession
- Olivetti and Pirelli as patrons
- 1 November 1964: Milan's metro
- Armando Testa
- Carosello
- Lorenzo Mattotti's festival posters
- Mattotti's fashion and advertising work
- Italian fashion illustrators, from Gruau to today
- Where to see the originals
- What an original is worth, and how to spot a reprint
WM Arte Gallery in Kuala Lumpur works in this line: its partner Galerie Martel in Paris represents Mattotti, and its lead artist Lihuà is a fashion illustrator who draws, like Dudovich, with few lines.