REVUES DE DEPERO 1931-1933
Numero Unico Futurista, Campari (1931)
Futurismo (1932)
Dinamo Futurista (1933)
Fortunato Depero, Giovanni Lista [introduction]
[Depero, Forunato] Fortunato Depero, Giovanni Lista [introduction]: REVUES DE DEPERO 1931-1933 [Numero Unico Futurista, Campari (1931); Futurismo (1932) + Dinamo Futurista (1933)]. Paris: Éditions Jean-Michel Place, 1979. First edition. Folio. Glazed paper covered boards. Orange cloth backstrip titled in black. 218 pp. Multiple paper stocks. Tipped in color plates. Faithful reproductions of Depero's three Avant-Garde Futurist journals published from 1931 to 1933. The scarcest volume from Jean-Michel Places' ambitious Collection of Reprints of the Avant-Garde Reviews of the 20th Century. Boards lightly marked and black spine type rubbed, but a nearly fine copy.
9.5 x 12.75 hardcover book with 218 pages that faithfully reproduce Depero's Avant-Garde Futurist journals published from 1931 to 1933. A beautifully-realized production on a wide variety of paper stocks and reproduction techniques that capture the zany futurism of Depero in the early 1930s. Text printed in orange, black and magenta, with tipped-in illustrations. The covers replicate the colors of the originals and includes all the advertising. This facsimile adds index to authors/collaborators & illustrators.
A truly stunning document: highly recommended.
- Numero unico futurista, Campari (1931)
- Futurismo (1932)
- Dinamo Futurista (1933)
Dinamo Futurista (1933) includes contributions by Depero, Paolo Buzzi, Luigi Russolo, Luciano Folgore, Umberto Notari, Massimo Bontempelli, Renato Simoni; 4 texts by Boccioni ("Quadro della storia dellarte," "Noi viviamo di verità nate ieri," "Dallimpressionismo al futurismo," "Interventismo--in carcere--al fuoco [quattro lettere]"). The final issue of Deperos review, published in conjunction with the grandiose Boccioni exhibition organized by the Fascists under the patronage of Mussolini, and directed by Marinetti together with Buzzi, Depero, Fillia, Prampolini and others.
It seems like only yesterday: Rome 1913 --Fortunato Depero meets Marinetti, Balla and Cangiullo through Giuseppe Sprovieri's Futurist gallery and becomes an active member of the Futurist movement, participating in the "Prima Esposizione Libera Futurista” in 1914. In March 1915, he published the manifesto Futurist Reconstruction of the Universe with Balla, which included photographs of their "complessi plastici" (plastic complexes) — abstract, kinetic constructions made of ephemeral materials. The manifesto advocated the extension of Futurist research into all fields of design and applied arts and also theorized the representation of psychological and extra-sensorial perceptions.
At the outbreak of the war, Depero, volunteered for military service but was discharged as unfit. During the war, he composed "onomalingua' (noise songs and poetry purely analogical) and drew plans for Futurist visionary architecture. Depero, together with Balla, was largely responsible for the artistic development of Futurism in its post-war phase. In 1919 he founded the Casa d'Arte Futurista in Rovereto, where he produced furniture, objects, graphics, posters and tapestries, with his wife Rosetta.
In 1925-26, Depero, spent eighteen months in Paris, where he showed in the Italian pavilion of the "Exposition Internationale des Arts Decoratifs et Industriels Modernes, with Balla and Prampolini. Depero experimented with built structures designed out of letters-what he termed "typographical" or "advertising architecture." He realized his most famous example at the "Seconda Biennale Internazionale d'Arte Decorativa' in Monza, 1927, with the book pavilion for the publishers Bestetti, Tumminelli and Treves in the form of monumental letters. In the early 1930s he did a similar project for the Campaxi factory, and designed several famous advertising campaigns for the same liquor company. In 1932 he authored the Manifesto of Advertising Art. From the late 1920s he lived in New York, where he worked as graphic designer for important magazines, notably Vanity Fair. He continued this activity in Italy, designing covers for Emporium, La Rivista (1927) and Vogue (1929). He also contributed to newspapers and magazines, such as La sera, Illustrazione italiana, Secolo illustrato and others.