Works, objects and printed matter from Italy between 1922 and 1944, documented from private archives.
A photomontage for the aeronautical branch of Breda: four aircraft climbing out of a wedge of light, and under them a line of the same machines drawn up in front of the sheds they were built in.
An adding machine sold as a female colleague who never makes a mistake. The Totalia was the Swedish Addo X, built under licence in Milan by Lagomarsino, whose office was at Piazza Duomo 21.
No product, no slogan, no machine: an advertising sheet for Breda that shows only the inside of a foundry at the moment of the pour, with a single small figure standing in it.
A photomontage for MAS of Turin, makers of lifting gear: an electric hoist holding a turretless tracked vehicle in mid-air, with the Mole Antonelliana rising behind. The address and telephone number are printed on the sheet.
A flying boat over the Palermo seaplane base, with Monte Pellegrino behind it. The company that built it, Aeronautica Sicula, began as the Ducrot furniture works — the firm that made Ernesto Basile’s Art Nouveau interiors.
Two lilies out of the dark and a tube of toothpaste: an advertising sheet for ALBA, a household product of Rumianca, the chemical company whose main business was caustic soda, chlorine and sulphuric acid.
An advertising sheet for the Officine Meccaniche Reggiane shows the Re.2001 with its skin taken off: the guns, the tanks, the frames all visible through the fuselage. A monogram in the corner, and no author we could confirm.
Detail of the mosaics made by Filiberto Sbardella for the Tempio dei Caduti at San Pellegrino Terme, early 1940s. Photograph:
Advertising sheet for Caproni Aeronautica Bergamasca S.A., Ponte San Pietro. Scan from the Stefano Vigolo collection. The aeroplane is drawn
