Paper Futurism: advertising posters from the 1930s on display in Treviso

The Salce Collection National Museum, Treviso ’s San Gaetano headquarters, is offering the exhibition Paper Futurism - Imagining the Universe with the Art of Advertising from March 1 to June 30. The exhibition, curated by Elisabetta Pasqualin with the collaboration of Sabina Collodel, is dedicated to Futurism in the years leading up to World War II and in particular to its advertising posters.

Between 1930 and 1940, the artistic current reached the height of its development, withaeropainting, which, transposed into graphics, exalts flight and aviation feats. The posters reflect the context of the moment, outlining an evolution of Italy from a predominantly agricultural nation to an industrial one, with aviation and automobile activity taking center stage. The chronicles extol the feats of Italian aviators, whose wings break records for speed, distance and height, becoming the tangible symbol of a new, powerful nation and a protagonist on the global stage. National pride grows, carefully fueled by the fascist regime’s propaganda. The feat of Francesco De Pinedo, is remarkable: he lands his seaplane Savoia Marchetti on the Tiber, where he is greeted by Mussolini and an enthusiastic crowd, after completing an epic journey to Australia, covering 55,000 kilometers across seas and great rivers, divided into 80 stages. De Pinedo himself, a few months later, flew from Italy to the two Americas, then returned to Italy. With De Pinedo was Arturo Ferrarin from Vicenza, the protagonist of the Rome-Tokyo raid and the flight record: 58 hours in a closed circuit. Flying over the cities and countryside fascinated and involved artists who, like Fortunato Depero (Fondo, 1892 - Rovereto, 1960) wanted to try the experience of flight by deriving new visions from it and moving away from earthly things.

“A momentum, a leap in levels and values that is evident in painting as much as in advertising graphics,” anticipates curator Elisabetta Pasqualin. "The bright and contrasting colors that were already in use in the first phase of futurist graphics remain, but the lettering becomes less predominant, still participates in the movement and lines present in the poster, but also returns to being explanatory accompaniments to the images.

Increasing, of course, are the number of posters focused on the theme of flight and aeronautical events. The exhibition, alongside creations by Di Lazzari, Martinati, and Garretto, features the Poster for the Italian Aeronautical Exhibition, a 1934 work by the only female artist in the exhibition, Carla Albini. It reconfirms the automobile-aircraft pair as an expression of dynamism and speed. In the cars, trails of color, automobile circuits, zigzag and spiral lines. The sky, the earth but also water: speedboats whizzing by leaving deep trails and launching high splashes, propellers in the foreground (Codognato, Riccobaldi Del Bava). Accomplice to the push for sports activities, the protagonist of many posters of this moment is the body in motion, as a dynamic instrument: swimming, tennis, rugby (Mancioli. Boccasile). The human figure is still interpreted in a modern key to impersonate the continuous innovations of industry: the Fiat man by Nizzoli or the anthropomorphic mechanism of Araca ’s Sniafiocco (Enzo Forlivesi), for example. Even the human face often becomes the subject of affinché, broken down in an almost cubist key, geometrized or made almost a dream, as in the poster for Illy Caffè by Xanti). To propose a dreamlike and irrational vision, free from logical suggestions. And graphic design already proves itself ready to turn the page."

)

Paper Futurism: advertising posters from the 1930s on display in Treviso

Warning: the translation into English of the original Italian article was created using automatic tools. We undertake to review all articles, but we do not guarantee the total absence of inaccuracies in the translation due to the program. You can find the original by clicking on the ITA button. If you find any mistake,please contact us.