?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 2,500 - $ 3,500
MARCELLO DUDOVICH (1878-1962) AND MARCELLO NIZZOLI (1887-1960) VENEZIA LIDO. Circa 1930. 38 3/4x27 inches, 98x68 1/2 cm. G. Scarabellin, Venice. Condition B+: replaced upper edge; repaired tears and restored loss in image; unobtrusive horizontal folds. Framed. Dudovich was one of the most prolific and important of the Italian poster artists. He designed more than six hundred posters in a career that spanned more than half a century. Nizzoli, who was an architect by training and considered one of the first Italian industrial designers (working for Olivetti), began his advertising career with the Maga agency in 1924. He was a bold artist with a strong sense of composition. In 1921, Dudovich and Nizzoli (along with Martinati) were appointed artistic directors of IGAP (Impresa Generale Affissioni Pubblicitaire). This exceptional collaboration bears both of their names, a rare occurrence, and perhaps the only time they worked together on the same poster. It was a popular image and was used on travel brochures as well; and its appearance on a German language brochure in 1930 helps to date the image. While most references date it to 1932-33, it clearly existed earlier (see www.travelbrochuregraphics.com). "While fashion was at the heart of Lido life, it also exemplified … the cult of the body and open air and the leisure state of dopolavoro. But rarely did the Lido fail to draw attention to its proximity to historic Venice. In one of the most telling advertisements for modern beach life, a modishly costumed figure in a new Jantzen-type wool swim suit wades into the Piazza San Marco as if she is about to confront, in all bravery and anticipation, the phallic form of the Campanile." (Venice Fragile City 1797-1997, by Margaret Plant. Yale University Press, New Haven, 2002, p. 303-4). Sirene 89.
