Marcello Dudovich Biography
Marcello Dudovich (Trieste, 21 March 1878 – Milan, 31 March 1962) was an Italian advertiser and painter. Together with Leonetto Cappiello, Adolf Hohenstein, Giovanni Maria Mataloni and Leopoldo Metlicovitz he was one of the fathers of modern Italian advertising poster design. From Trieste he moved to Milan in 1897. Thanks to his father's friendship with Leopoldo Metlicovitz, already an established painter and poster designer at the time, Marcello was hired as a lithographer at Officine Grafiche Ricordi. In this environment, the artist had the opportunity to deal with the works of some of the most appreciated poster artists of the time, such as Adolf Hohenstein, Aleardo Villa, Leonetto Cappiello, Giovanni Maria Mataloni and was commissioned to create sketches for advertising. He broadened his education by attending courses in academic drawing and study of the nude at the "Patriotic Artistic Society" in Milan in 1898 and opened a painting studio together with Metlicovitz and the Greek painter Arvanitaki. He began to independently produce the first advertising graphics works for Ricordi but also for other lithographic factories such as Gualapini, Cantarella and Modiano. In 1899, a salient year in his artistic career, he was called to Bologna to work at Edmondo Chappuis's graphic establishment. The artist, despite leaving Milan, continues his working relationship with Officine Grafiche Ricordi. It was in the Emilian capital that he began producing billboards, covers, illustrations and sketches for various magazines; The first autonomous and complete works, signed by Marcello, correspond precisely to these years. In this period he was also an illustrator for the magazine "Fantasio" in 1902, published in Rome and specializing in literature, criticism and variety. In 1900 he created posters which led him to win for three consecutive years, from 1900 to 1902, the "Spring Festivals" competition announced by the Society for the Awakening of City Life: he became the undisputed leader of Italian poster design, even winning the Medal of 'Gold at the Paris Universal Exhibition of 1900. In 1902 he participated in the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative Art in Turin, exhibiting the poster "fixed the idea" under the corporate acronym of the artistic cooperative "Æmilia Ars", famous for study of ancient models of the Renaissance, of jewellery, leather, furniture and ceramics manufacturing. In 1904 he collaborated with the arts and letters magazine "Novissima", directed by Edoardo De Fonseca. The magazine, published for ten years, was considered the Manifesto of Modern Graphics, a refined Italian publication dedicated to the art of book decoration and of a fundamental role in the Liberty style, in which the major artists of the time collaborated: in addition to Dudovich there were Ferruccio Baruffi, Luigi Bompard, Felice Casorati, Giacomo Balla, Gaetano Previati. The artist will remain in Bologna for six productive years and here he will meet his future wife, Elisa Bucchi, a fashion journalist originally from Faenza who will represent the muse behind the beautiful feminine features depicted in his advertising campaigns. The woman already has a son, Ernesto, to whom Dudovich will later give his surname. Elisa and Marcello's only daughter is Adriana, who married Walter Resentera, a young Venetian painter, in 1935. Together with the young man, his great admirer who moved to Milan with the firm intention of becoming his student, Dudovich began a long cooperation, both in the field of posters and in that of wall decoration. In this period he established artistic and historical relationships with the city of Florence, in which Alfonso Rubbiani and his school of young artists had been working for many years. He works for the Bolognese humorous periodical Italia Ride, for which he creates numerous illustrations, satirical and decorative cartoons, a magazine projected towards a modern vision of contemporary art which slowly flows into the new and stimulating Art Nouveau. This collaboration brings him into close contact with the most important leading figures of the Italian avant-garde such as Augusto Majani, aka Nasìca, artistic director, Augusto Sèzanne, Luigi Bompard, Ugo Valeri, Ardengo Soffici, Galileo Chini and other innovators, from whose association the artist derives further reason for growth. He remained in Bologna until 1905, the year in which the cooperation with the Chappuis factory in Bologna ended, due to the Trieste native's unquestionable tendency towards professional freedom, in the search for ever new experiences which he could certainly materialize in much more industrialized cities such as Milan. In October 1905, Dudovich received an invitation from the publisher Armanino to go to Genoa and, despite his initial enthusiasm, the Ligurian capital was unable to offer him the ideal working environment. He returned to Milan again in 1906, where he prepared an event of European importance: the International Exhibition, linked to the inauguration of the Simplon Tunnel. Having re-established relations with Officine Grafiche Ricordi, the artist participates with the other poster artists of the team in the competition announced to choose the advertising poster that will represent the Exhibition. After the recognition received for the inauguration of the Simplon Tunnel, Dudovich was entrusted with the task of decorating the external walls of the Italian pavilion of decorative art at the International Exhibition in Milan, which had been devastated by a fire. Dudovich, now an emerging master in the panorama of graphics at the beginning of the century, looked with attentive interest at the new avant-gardes of Expressionism, European movements such as the "Fauves", triggered by Henri Matisse and the "Die Brücke" group of Dresden, which would influence his works. 1907 and 1913 are the years of the posters, created for the advertising campaigns promoted by the Neapolitan department stores of the Mele Brothers, dealing with the promotion of the company's image. They absolutely represent his most original and happiest inventions: the "woman in the red dress", the "woman in the blue dress", the woman scrutinized with contrasting feelings by a couple of passers-by. But these were also the years in which Dudovich designed one of his most famous posters for the Alessandria company Borsalino, winning the competition announced by the company to create the advertisement for the "Zenit" hat. This poster, despite being presented by Dudovich out of competition, will win the award and will represent the greatest tribute and recognition for him. The artist assiduously frequents Milan's public gatherings, coming into contact with the greatest figures who animate metropolitan cultural life. He describes the environments where the lords, the bourgeoisie move, where worldliness is exhibited, yet almost managing to idealize a world of which he becomes the interpreter, a new flourishing and continually growing society: the Belle Époque. In these environments he maintained friendly relations with Camillo Boito, architect and writer, and with the whole series of great artists and writers of Milanese circles, such as Filippo Carcano, Antonio Ambrogio Alciati, Umberto Boccioni and Federico Andreotti. Regularly frequenting Caffè Biffi, Savini and l'Orologio, he came into contact with fashion circles, also facilitated by his wife Elisa Bucchi who works as chief correspondent for some renowned clothing magazines. Dudovich, witnessing the transformation of clothing, especially in the female dress line, takes advantage of the moment by emancipating the woman's figure and equipping her with all the accessories of seduction: gloves, bows, collars and stockings, all accompanied by the cigarette with holder smoke, which became a symbol of the feminine verve of that era. The woman escapes from the home context, no longer relegated to domestic duties at the end of the nineteenth century, finally seeing herself elevated to a specific role in society.
