May 07, 2007 - Sale 2113

Sale 2113 - Lot 142

Price Realized: $ 5,280
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 5,000 - $ 7,500
GIOVANNI MINGOZZI (1891- ?) BARBISIO. 1938.
77 3/4x55 inches. Gros-Monti, Turin.
Condition B+: repaired tears and restoration in image. Two sheets.
Mingozzi was a prolific poster designer in Bologna, where he ran an eponymous studio and opened a successful advertising agency called Alta. In the 1930s one of his clients was the elegant haberdasher, Barbisio. In this emphatic image Mingozzi creates a modish Art Deco allegory, turning a man's body into a geometrical exclamation point, with a detailed rendering of hat serving as a secondary point. The suggestion of a cane and a boutonniere add an entrancing element to the overall design and ultimate effect of the image. The exclamation point appears in other posters by the artist promoting the same company, but never in as original a fashion as this one. Bolaffi p. 150 (var).