76 1/2x53 inches, 194 1/4x134 1/2 cm. Edizione Studio Venna Innocenti, Florence. Condition B: replaced losses and repaired tears in margins; replaced losses, repaired tears, creases and overpainting in margins and along vertical and horizontal folds. Two-sheets.
Lucio Venna was a painter and poster designer who joined the Futurist movement towards the end of the First World War. By the early 1920s, he abandoned painting and began to focus exclusively on posters designed in his characteristic style "with evident futurist geometries" (Bolaffi p. 119). This poster advertises a race in Cuneo, but "the racecourse itself actually ran through the Maddalena Pass, which connects the Maritime Alps with the Cottian Alps and Cuneo with Barcelonette, France. The design perfectly represents the varied topography of the Italian city, which is located in a tree-lined valley at the base of the mountains. The Stura di Demonte river is depicted at the left" (ibid). Here, Venna's design "conveys a remarkable sense of depth through nothing more than simple geometric planes of color. There is a collage-like feel to the shapes, as if they were layered pieces of paper and not printed ink" (ibid). Rare. Crouse p. 177.
