Sicily in posters

In the years following the end of World War I, Italy faced a decline in tourist interest compared to other European destinations. In this context, in November 1919, ENIT, Ente Nazionale Industrie Turistiche (National Tourist Industry Board), was founded. This entity was created with the aim of promoting the image of the peninsula abroad and spreading, within the country, the knowledge of the main Italian holiday resorts. ENIT immediately started advertising campaigns in newspapers and magazines and promoted the dissemination of posters and playbills. From that moment on, many parts of Italy began to be told through advertising posters, which described with pictures the most beautiful and fascinating locations. They were not limited only to cities of art, but also included small towns, picturesque villages and beautiful landscapes between the sea and the mountains. To tell the story of Italy’s most beautiful places, ENIT hired the best poster designers of the time, including Gino Boccasile, Erberto Carboni, Franco Codognato, Marcello Dudovich, Leopoldo Metlicovitz, Marcello Nizzoli, and Mario Puppo. Their tourism propaganda posters were displayed mainly at railway and maritime stations, early civilian airports, borders, public offices, and Italian representative offices abroad.

The fastest and most effective means of disseminating tourism was print advertising, particularly the poster intended for posting. The colorful and easily disseminated street poster played a crucial role in promoting the most fascinating destinations, historic sites of cultural interest, and typical events on the peninsula. Advances in printing techniques, particularly chromolithography, made it possible to reproduce a wide range of shades in color. The resulting posters had realistic color rendition, and the chromolithographic process allowed very faithful reproduction of painting techniques such as watercolor, gouache, tempera and oil.

Therefore, through the advertising poster, images dedicated to historical Sicilian localities, events and businesses were represented. The posters that follow, recount the main beauties and attractions of the Sicilian island, created by authors such as: Mario Puppo (Levanto 1905, Chiavari 1977), Lalia Alfredo (Genzano di Roma 1907, Rome 1971), Attilio Ravaglia (Bologna 1889, date unknown), and Decio Gueli.

Of these, Mario Puppo was undoubtedly the name that stood out the most in the panorama of tourism graphics. Biographical information is scarce, so much so that we do not even know what studies he undertook. He was born in 1905 in Levanto and during the 1930s, in his studio in Chiavari, he began to produce brochures and posters to advertise seaside and mountain resorts, posters for events and exhibitions, as well as various covers for sheet music and catalogues. There are few examples in Puppo's graphic production of commercial advertising: in 1937 he designed the annual calendar for Barilla, showing the different human activities (sport, study, work, military life) associated with the brand's products; for Fiat he designed two posters: one for war propaganda in 1942 and the other for the Fiat 500B in 1948. In 1941 in Milan, his works were exhibited in the Salon of Advertising Graphics at the National Exhibition of the Fine Arts Union. The graphic synthesis that characterises his production between the 1930s and 1940s is definitely the antithesis of what can be observed in the posters of contemporary Italian poster artists, redundant and pictorial; Mario Puppo is definitely closer to French authors such as Sepo, Paul Colin and Cassandre.
The characters that animate his posters are portrayed in geometric and essential forms, like the landscapes and settings, rendered synthetically with simple strokes and large areas of colour. After World War II and until the 1960s, Mario Puppo continued to design a large part of the tourist posters affixed in that period; at the same time, his attention shifted to posters promoting theatrical events. He received commissions for shows staged in ancient theatres; he created colourful posters for events and popular festivals in which he extolled local customs and traditions, especially in southern Italy. In his posters, he demonstrates a humorous vérve, a genial ironic and amusing satire that links him to the most famous French poster artists of the post- World War II period, including Savignac and Morvan.
According to critics, his pre-war graphics were very effective and appreciated, while his post-war production was distinguished by the dynamism of the volumes, particularly those of bathers and skiers.

If for the figure of Mario Puppo we can trace a path of his works, for Decio Gueli we cannot. Neither biographical information nor information on his career is available. We do know that he was the author of a poster produced in 1949 entitled 'The temples of Agrigiento' for Enit. There are, however, other versions of this poster: the same image and layout were reused on various occasions, for example to publicise the Raduno Regionale Automobile Rally held in Agrigento in 1952 and for the Sagra del Mandorlo in fiore in Agrigento the same year.