May 12, 2008 - Sale 2145

Sale 2145 - Lot 91

Price Realized: $ 7,200
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 6,000 - $ 9,000
FREDERICO SENECA (1891-1976) BUITONI. 1928.
77x55 1/4 inches, 195 1/2x140 cm. L. Baroni, Milan.
Condition B+: minor restoration along sharp vertical and horizontal folds; repaired tears, restoration and abrasions in image. 3 Sheets.
Seneca studied at the School of Fine Art in Rome where he began his career as a painter and graphic designer. From 1919-1929, he was the Art Director for the pasta and chocolate combine Perugina-Buitoni. His work "in many ways . . . was the perfect synthesis of [Art Deco, Futurism and Cubism] . . . he created stylized, tubular figures which revealed the influence of Leger and Depero and the whimsical memorability of Cappiello" (http://www.internationalposter.com/it-text.com). This well-balanced image with its curving typography is one of his more straightforward, in that it actually uses a chef to help sell pasta, as opposed to an incongruous nun (see Swann Modernist Poster Auction #2113, lot 143) or an infant's head (see following lot). Manifesti p. 104.