CAMPO GRAFICO 1933 - 1939
RIVISTA DI ESTETICA E DI TECNICA GRAFICA
Attilio Rossi [introduction]
Attilio Rossi [introduction]: CAMPO GRAFICO 1933 - 1939 [RIVISTA DI ESTETICA E DI TECNICA GRAFICA]. Milan: Electa, 1983. First edition [Pagina series]. Text in Italian and English. Square quarto. Photographically printed French-folded wrappers. 90 pp. 171 color and black and white reproductions. Spine slightly toned. Lower corner pushed. Slipcase gently worn to corners and edges. A nearly fine copy housed in a nearly fine Publishers printed slipcase.
9.5 x 8.75 softcover book with 90 pages and 171 cover and page reproductions from the 7-year publishing history of Campo Grafico. Published in conjunction with an exhibition of the same name at the Milan City Library at Palazzo Sormani on the fiftieth anniversary of the foundation of Campo Grafico.
66 issues of Campo Grafico were published between 1933 and 1939 by a loosely confederated group of Italian printers, typographers, designers, and photographers. Subtitled Magazine Of Aesthetic And Graphical Technique the contents were designed and printed during off-hours at various presses throughout Italy and assembled and distributed in a similarly freeform fashion. The results were pure examples of Maud Lavin's phrase "design in the service of commerce," and a magnificent demonstration of the unity of the arts and technological life.
The collective paid tribute to the homegrown aesthetic of Marinetti's Futurism, but was forward-looking enough to explore contemporary trends such as PhotoMontage, Collage and the ideology of the New Typography, while — in the spirit of inclusiveness — mixing in every other "Ism" of the 1930s Avant-Garde.
Few copies of Campo Grafico survived, and the 1983 Milan exhibition codified the legacy of this superb Graphic Arts journal. Campo Grafico is an essential document of a nearly forgotten collective enterprise that mirrored the glory and the turmoil of its time. Our highest recommendation.
Includes work by Attilio Rossi, Luigi Minardi, Carlo Darlo Dradi, Enrico Bona, Carlo Baldini, Eligio Bonelli, Giovanni Brenna, Pasquale Casonato, Carla Dradi, Natale Felici, Luigi Ferrari, Luigi Ghiiringhelli, Luigi Laboni, Carlo Lanzani, Giovanni Mazzucatelli, Ezio Mechelotti, Luigi Minardi, Romano Minardi, Achille Moroe, Luigi Negroni, Battista Pallavera, Giovanni Peviani, Giovanni Pirondini, Ricciardi, Giuseppe Scotti, Loris Ticinelli And Umberto Zani.