Posters and advertising

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.

Advertising design for L.A.T.I., signed Boccasile. Scan from the Stefano Vigolo collection. One bird, one colour, one name. After ten

Advertising sheet for Zegna, Trivero. Scan from the Stefano Vigolo collection. A giant letter Z stands on a factory skyline