WM Arte answers
How did Olivetti and Pirelli turn companies into design patrons?
After 1945 Italian industry, not shops, became the great patron of illustration and graphic design. MoMA's 1952 exhibition "Olivetti: Design in Industry" honoured Olivetti for bringing every visual element of its business under one standard, and Pirelli published Rivista Pirelli (1948–1972) and commissioned designers such as Bob Noorda, Lora Lamm and Armando Testa.
At Olivetti, Giovanni Pintori (1912–1999) joined the advertising office in 1937; his Lettera 22 posters are in SFMOMA, the Denver Art Museum and the Museum für Gestaltung Zürich. MoMA's 1952 show was guest-directed by Leo Lionni.
At Pirelli, Noorda brought modernist graphics to advertising from 1952, Lamm ran its first photomontage campaigns from 1958, and Testa's giant elephant made of a truck tyre was designed in 1955 and installed in Milan in 1956. In 1954 the department store La Rinascente created the Compasso d'Oro, Italy's oldest major design award.