?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 2,500 - $ 3,500
MARIO SIRONI (1885-1961) IL GIGANTE DELL'ARIA. 1926. 39x27 3/4 inches, 99x70 1/2 cm. Luigi Salomone, Rome. Condition A-: minor repaired tears at edges; minor creases and abrasions in image. Sironi was a painter and an early member of the Futurist movement in the years before World War I. After the war, he was one of the founders of the Novecento Italiano movement and began supporting Mussolini. He contributed hundreds of illustrations to and designed covers for the Fascist newspapers Il Popolo d'Italia and La Rivista Illustrata del Popola d'Italia. He also designed pavilions for exhibitions and numerous posters, both political and commercial (including Fiat). He eventually abandoned easel painting in favor of communicating via "a fusion of decoration and architecture exemplified by Gothic cathedrals. He felt that the mural was the proper basis of a popular national art" (Il Castello). This exceptional poster amply proves what a major artist he was and reflects his truly monumental style, which frequently depicted imposing stone structures, and in this instance, even lends the zeppelin the improbable look of the stone structure beneath it. In 1926, Italian aviator Umberto Nobile successfully piloted an Italia N1 airship, the Norge over the North Pole from Europe. This poster is most likely commemorating that historic event. It should be noted that Mussolini, unlike Hitler, supported some of the best Futurist and Modernist artists.
