From "bolted book"

to New York skyscrapers

1927 / 1930

	In January 1927 he participated in the Exhibition of Futurist Painting at the Casa del Fascio in Bologna and in May, with the Futurist group, in the Quadriennale in Turin. During the same year he took part also in the 3rd International Exhibition of Decorative Arts in Monza where he accomplished the famous "Book Pavilion" upon request of the publishers Bestetti- Tumminelli-Treves. This was an exhibit-structure formed by several printing types of various size used as bricks, to symbolise the typographic process. Still in 1927 it was published by the Dinamo-Azari editions of Milan, the mythical "Depero Futurista'' better known as ''libro bullonato" (bolted book), a real revolution in typography layout and first sample of an object-book; a masterpiece in the history of printing of this century. During these years He is deeply involved in advertising work, expecially for the Campari firm, for which he ralised a hundred and more projects for newspaper ads as well for big poster printing. In September 1928 he went to New York where in January 1929 he held a one-man exhibition at the "Guarino Gallery of Italian Contemporary Art", showing his tapestries and paintings, and then exhibiting in other galleries such as the "Advertising Club" in Madison Avenue. In New York Depero was mostly engaged with advertising and stage settings. He designed covers for some New York magazines such as Vanity Fair, Sparks, The News Auto Atlas, and others. Then he designed ballet-costumes for the Roxy Theatre and realised also some interior designing, in particular for the Zucca's and Enrico & Paglieri's Restaurants. Unfortunately, few time later both sites were destroyed because of the building of the Rockefeller Center. While in New York Depero was asked to sign the manifesto "L'Aeropittura Futurista" (29th of September 1929), which inaugurated a new (curse) in Futurism. Actually, at the time, Depero's artistic point of view was quite far from that of Marinetti: indeed he never painted something that could be related to the conceit of flying . He returned to Italy in October of 1930.

BACK TO BIOGRAPHICAL

SUMMARY-PAGE

Updated:  December 1st, 2000