D'APRÈS ADOLPHE MOURON CASSANDRE (1901-1968) COLOMBA MOTTA. 1936. 39 1/2x27 1/2 inches, 100 1/4x70 cm. Calcografia & Cartevalori, Milan. Condition A- / B+: repaired tears, minor losses and staining in margins, some slightly into image. In 1936, before he left for the United States, Cassandre spent the month of August working in Italy. He and his assistant Raymond Savignac had been brought over by Augusto Coen, the Italian publisher, to design a handful of posters. During those years Mussolini had forbidden foreign nationals to work in Italy, and consequently Cassandre's posters from that sojourn are cryptically signed with a logo and the initials AMC, to obscure his identity. While in Italy, Cassandre designed a handful of travel posters, including a poster advertising the Italia-Cosulich Line and this image. This one, signed "d'après Cassandre," may indicate that he had already left Italy by the time it was printed. Cassandre had already been exposed to Surrealism (by Balthus, who he met in 1935) and the art form had exerted a strong influence on him. Here, he uses a photograph of a dove-shaped cookie, superimposed over the white outline of a dove. This is the smaller version. Mouron 243, Suntory p. 179, Cassandre / Weill 175.
