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2020 | OriginalPaper | Chapter

A Mythological Hand with 45 Fingers. The Olivetti Advertising Office in the 1930s

Author : Giuliana Altea

Published in: Proceedings of the 2nd International and Interdisciplinary Conference on Image and Imagination

Publisher: Springer International Publishing

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Abstract

Critical interest in Olivetti has never been so strong. Studies on the Ivrea company continue to stream in from a diverse range of fields including economic history, the history of social thought, that of literature, that of architecture and those of design, and graphic design.

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Recent studies include: De Giorgi and Morteo (2008), Fiorentino (2014), Toschi (2018), Carter (2018, 2019).

Zveteremich, Organizzazione Ufficio Pubblicità Olivetti, company document, 1931, Archivio Olivetti, Ivrea.

Monguzzi (1981).

The image, an offset print, is described as a photomontage for a calendar in Monguzzi (1981, 4).

Fiorentino (2014, 143–144).

Zorzi, Relazione per audiovisivo, Milan, December 17, 1973, Archivio Storico Olivetti; cited in Fiorentino (2014, 122).

The recent reawakening of interest in Schawinsky has not extended to his Milan period and it was not explored in Blume et al. (2015).

See Altea and Camarda (2015); Musina (2013). Nivola was hired in autumn 1936, recommended by the parents of his future wife Ruth Guggenheim, who were friends of Olivetti, as well as Pagano, to assist with the Piano Regolatore della Valle d’Aosta, an Olivetti enterprise that in the end came to naught. It was Nivola who suggested hiring Pintori, who joined the team immediately after.

For Fancello, who died painfully young on the Albanian front in 1941, see Altea and Stringa (2016).

For Nivola, Pintori and Fancello in Monza, see Cassanelli et al. (2003).

See Stone (1998).

For Sinisgalli’s recollections, see Sinisgalli (1955, 23). For those of Nivola, see Baggiani and Pinna Parpaglia, unpublished interview with Nivola (1980), Nuoro, Ilisso Archive, 34.

Colizzi and Bazzani (2014).

Nivola (1988).

Nivola in Baggiani and Pinna Parpaglia (1980, 33–34), Nuoro, Ilisso Archive.

Colizzi and Bazzani (2014, 8).

“This Zveteremich got a big head, he thought that, since war was coming, he wanted to get involved with the national propaganda … He was a strange one. Everyone treated him well while he was at Olivetti, he was a spender, but then when he left Olivetti, they all closed the doors in his face, he went to Rome …” Baggiani and Pinna Parpaglia (1980, 33). A trip to Rome with Pagano in August 1938 having born no real fruit, Zveteremich continued working in Milan, including, among other things, consulting for the advertising agency controlled by the regime, UPI (see Colizzi and Bazzani (2014, 13–14)).

Letter from Olivetti to Zveteremich, Ivrea, July 13, 1938. Archivio Storico Olivetti. The graphic designer assigned to the “demonstration” brochure for the M40 is not noted; it seems unlikely that it was the one produced by Schawinsky in 1934.

Saibene (2017). Saibene also notes that there is a draft in the Olivetti archive for a caption by Mario Labò for the 1938 Triennale that attributes the graphic design to Schawinsky, the text to Sinisgalli, and the cover Nivola.

Nivola (1988).

“Some of the projects that Svetteremich [sic] assigned to me were beyond my abilities. For example, the one for completing a brochure on the typefaces of Olivetti typewriters that had been started by Santi Shavisky [sic], a top-notch German artist coming from the Bauhaus.” Nivola (1988).

Persico had introduced the continuous, horizontal page back in 1930, when he was an editor at Belvedere. On Persico as a graphic designer, see Modiano (1935 [but 1936], 231–232).

Sinisgalli (1938).

Meikle (1995).

Here as well, there is disagreement over the attribution of the images. M. Siracusa (“Campagna pubblicitaria,” in De Giorgi and Morteo (2008, 64)) indicates only Pintori as the author of the work.

Vittorini (1939).

Fiorentino (2014, 73).

Sinisgalli (1955).

Nivola (1988, 32). The artist was more explicit elsewhere: “I was the one who got Sinisgalli in at Olivetti, and then the bastard didn’t give me anything to do …,” Baggiani and Pinna Parpaglia (1980).

Altea, G., Camarda, A.: Costantino Nivola. La sintesi delle arti. Ilisso, Nuoro (2015)

Altea, G., Stringa, N.: Salvatore Fancello. Lo spazio della metamorfosi. Ilisso, Nuoro (2016)

Astarita, R.: Gli architetti di Olivetti. Una storia di committenza industriale. Franco Angeli, Milan (2012)

Baggiani, P., Pinna Parpaglia, G.: Unpublished interview with Costantino Nivola, Ilisso Archive, Nuoro (1980)

Blume, T., Díaz, E., Koss, J.: Xanti Schawinsky. JRP/Ringier, Zurich (2015)

Carter, J.: Italy on fifth ave: from the museum of modern art to the olivetti showroom. Mod. Italy 23(1), 103–122 (2018)CrossRef

Carter, J.: Salaried Intellectuals: Fortini, Giudici, Ottieri, Volponi, and Buzzi at the Olivetti Company Italian Culture (2019). https://doi.org/10.1080/01614622.2019.1601391

Cassanelli, R. et al.: Nivola Fancello Pintori. Percorsi del Moderno. JacA Book, Milan (2003)

Colizzi, A., Bazzani Zveteremich, R.: Un pioniere della pubblicità: Renato Zveteremich (1893–1951), Storia in Lombardia, I, pp. 121–40 (2014)

De Giorgi, M., Morteo, E., (eds.): Olivetti: una bella società. Allemandi, Turin (2008)

Fiorentino, C.C.: Millesimo di millimetro. I segni del codice visivo Olivetti 1908–1978. Il Mulino, Bologna (2014)

Meikle, J.L.: Domesticating modernity: ambivalence and appropriation, 1920-40. In: Kaplan, W. (ed.) Designing Modernity. The Arts of Reform and Persuasion 1885–1945, pp. 143–167. Thames and Hudson, London (1995)

Modiano, G. (1935 [but 1936]). Tipografie di Edoardo Persico, Campografico, pp. 11–12: 231–32

Monguzzi, B.: Lo Studio Boggeri. 1933–1981. Electa, Milan (1981)

Musina, S.: Giovanni Pintori, la severa tensione tra riserbo ed estro. Lupetti, Milan (2013)

Nivola, C.: Come nelle botteghe dei tessitori del Guatemala. Notizie Olivetti 37(2), 28–32 (1988)

Saibene, A.: L’Italia di Adriano Olivetti. Edizioni di Comunità, Rome (2017)

Stone, M.S.: Art and Politics in Fascist Italy. Princeton University Press, Princeton (1998)

Toschi, C.: The Olivetti Idiom 1952–1979. Quodlibet, Macerata (2018)

Sinisgalli, L.: Storia della scrittura. Olivetti (1938)

Sinisgalli, L.: Le mie stagioni milanesi. Civiltà delle macchine 5, 23 (1955)

Vittorini, E.: Una campagna pubblicitaria. Avanguardia nella tecnica, Alfieri & Lacroix (1939)

Title: A Mythological Hand with 45 Fingers. The Olivetti Advertising Office in the 1930s
Author: Giuliana Altea
Publisher: Springer International Publishing
Book: Proceedings of the 2nd International and Interdisciplinary Conference on Image and Imagination
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-41017-9

Electronic ISBN: 978-3-030-41018-6

Copyright Year: 2020
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41018-6_4

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