Italian sparkling wine posters
Trento  2004-2005
With Trento Chamber of Commerce, the Autonomous Province of Trento, the Veneto region
historic and artistic heritage office, and the “Luigi Bailo” civic museum, Treviso
Curated by Roberto Festi. Catalogue published by Priuli & Verlucca
The exhibition is available for new showings

This exhibition brings together the most beautiful posters evoking a world of high glamour, from an era spanning the entire twentieth century. It also sets the early photographic posters of the Sixties and Seventies in their historical context, as a radical departure from the graphical styles which had been a defining feature of the previous work. There is a wealth of material - much of it on show for the first time - retracing the story of the publicity output of the great sparkling wine producers, from Cinzano to Gancia, Asti to Riccadonna, Martini to Bosca, Ferrari to Contratto, and Cora to Ferrero, back to the now far-off days of Mitigliano, Mirafiore, Calissano and Svic. It is an intriguing display, for the quality of the graphic work and the beguiling figurative language of the best commercial artists of the twentieth century (Aldo Mazza, Achille Luciano Mauzan, Plinio Codognato, Erberto Carboni, Leonetto Cappiello, Marcello Dudovich, Giuseppe Magagnoli, Nico Edel, Mario Gros, Armando Testa and others), and also for underlying commentary on the costume and history of the period that they provide. There are over fifty pieces on show, mostly from the Salce Collection of the "Luigi Bailo" Civic Museum of Treviso, complemented by an evocative display recreating the dress of the period, as a three-dimensional witness to the "designs" created by the most authoritative exponents of Italian poster art. The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue published by Priuli & Verlucca, which documents all the works in the show.