Posters by Rinascente

1 — Marcello Dudovich, La Rinascente. Novità di stagione autunno-inverno, 1930, litografia

Archivio la Rinascente, Milano

The advertising poster, a modern expression of the new society

Towards the end of the nineteenth century, the idea of the advertising poster started to spread from France, adding a dash of colour to walls in big cities. In those crucial years, when the urban, political and retail landscapes were all undergoing great change with the diffusion of industrial and serial products, the poster fully met a new need for visual communication that had to be effective, immediate and for the masses. It used evocative, simplified images to spread messages of a political, cultural and commercial nature.

2 — Corso Vittorio Emanuele II con veduta dei Magazzini Bocconi, 1865-1887

Civico Archivio Fotografico, Milano

3 — Aleardo Villa, Caffaro. Giornale politico. Quotidiano di grande formato, 1897-1906, litografia

Archivio la Rinascente, Milano

4 — Leonetto Cappiello, Bitter Campari, 1921, litografia

Archivio la Rinascente, Milano

Industrial companies and department stores were the first to realise and fully exploit the huge potential of this new means of communication, which could reach every social class and which went hand in hand with their process of democratising consumption.

5 — Padiglione la Rinascente alla Fiera Campionaria, 1931

Fondazione Fiera Milano, Archivio storico

6 — E. & A. Mele. Ultime novità, abiti per uomo, massimo buon mercato, [1906-1914], litografia

Archivio la Rinascente, Milano

Described by the critic Vittorio Pica as “a humble art form that, even in its ephemeral glory—faded by the sun, soaked and stained by the rain, and ripped by the wind—corresponds amazingly to the whirling intensity of our big cities,” the advertising poster is not just considered artistic expression in the true sense, but is also an important iconographic document of the various human manifestations, a modern expression of the new society.

7 — Aleardo Villa, Fratelli Bocconi Milano. Grandi Magazzini di Novità Alle Città d’Italia, 1898 ca., litografia

Civica Raccolta delle Stampe Achille Bertarelli, Milano

8 — Milano, veduta animata di piazza del Duomo, 1900 ca.

Civico Archivio Fotografico, Milano

9 — Milano, veduta panoramica di piazza del Duomo, 1926-1936

Civico Archivio Fotografico, Milano

10 — Marcello Dudovich, La Rinascente, 1923 ca., litografia

Archivio la Rinascente, Milano

The collection by Rinascente

Poster collections are valuable artistic and historic sources, enabling the reconstruction of a past culture, in-depth analysis of the history of graphic design and investigation into the relationship between art and industry and therefore between art and advertising. The Rinascente collection of 128 posters is one of these, salvaged from the various historic vicissitudes that have marked the history of this department store, including the fire in 1918, the air raids in 1943, and various changes of ownership.

11 — Il palazzo de la Rinascente dopo l’incendio, 1918

Civico Archivio Fotografico, Milano

Apart from the two posters for the Mele store, from the early 1900s, one for the “Caffaro” magazine and another for Campari by Leonetto Cappiello, the rest were all produced for Rinascente and date from between the 1920s and the 1950s. This was a special period in the company’s history, which began with the rebirth of the department store after the fire, under the new management of Borletti and with the new name Rinascente, and peaked with the other big rebirth in the fifties, after the air raids and with the rebuilding of the new headquarters in Milan.

12 — Aldo Mazza, La Rinascente ha inaugurato i suoi grandi Magazzini di Milano (Piazza Duomo), 1921, litografia

Archivio la Rinascente, Milano

The oldest Rinascente poster in the collection is the historic one by Aldo Mazza in 1921. It announces the reopening after the fire with the symbolic image of a black log sprouting delicate pale green shoots. The newest posters are those for the inauguration of the new headquarters in Milan, rebuilt after the air raids during the war, on which the new lR logo by Huber stands proud, together with some late works by Marcello Dudovich, dated 1955.

13 — Demolizione del palazzo de la Rinascente bombardato, 1949

Archivio Brustio - La Rinascente - Università Commerciale Luigi Bocconi, Milano

14 — Inaugurazione del nuovo edificio de la Rinascente in piazza del Duomo, 1950

Archivio Brustio - La Rinascente - Università Commerciale Luigi Bocconi, Milano

15 — Albe Steiner, lR. Si riapre il 4 dicembre, 1950, litografia

Archivio la Rinascente, Milano

The collection includes posters by Mario Bazzi, Gino Boccasile, Leonetto Cappiello, Aldo Mazza, Walter Resentera, Nanni Schipani, Renato Vernizzi, and, especially, Marcello Dudovich.

16 — Mario Bazzi, La Rinascente. Fiera del bianco, 1929, litografia

Archivio la Rinascente, Milano

17 — Gino Boccasile, Alla Rinascente "Tessuti tipo" Leumann, 1941 ca., litografia

Archivio la Rinascente, Milano

18 — Renato Vernizzi, La Rinascente. Giocattoli, 1946, litografia

Archivio la Rinascente, Milano

19 — Marcello Dudovich, La Rinascente. Vendita speciale, casalinghi e arredamento della casa, 1925, litografia

Archivio la Rinascente, Milano

20 — Marcello Dudovich, Alla Rinascente moda e novità autunno, 1939, litografia

Archivio la Rinascente, Milano

21 — Marcello Dudovich, Equinozio di primavera. Apertura di stagione alla Rinascente, 1946, litografia

Archivio la Rinascente, Milano

22 — Marcello Dudovich,
A La Rinascente bagni vacanze, 1949, litografia

Archivio la Rinascente, Milano

The subjects illustrated represent the different Rinascente sales sectors, fashion in particular, with a prevalence of posters that announce the season’s new items.

23 — Marcello Dudovich,
La Rinascente. Novità di stagione autunno-inverno, 1930, litografia

Archivio la Rinascente, Milano

24 — Marcello Dudovich,
La Rinascente. Apertura di stagione, novità primavera-estate, 1927 ca., litografia

Archivio la Rinascente, Milano

There are also many posters for gifts and toys, articles for the home, holidays and sport, as well as posters advertising the periodic “linen festivals”.

25 — Vetrerie al piano sotterraneo dei grandi magazzini La Rinascente, 1956 ca.

Touring Club Italiano, Milano

26 — Marcello Dudovich, La Rinascente. Strenne giocattoli, 1925-1930 ca., litografia

Archivio la Rinascente, Milano

27 — Marcello Dudovich, La Rinascente. Vendita speciale casalinghi e arredamento della casa, 1927-1929 ca., litografia

Archivio la Rinascente, Milano

28 — Marcello Dudovich, Alla Rinascente il meglio per le vostre vacanze, s.d., litografia

Archivio la Rinascente, Milano

29 — Giovanni Manca, Gymnasium. Organizzazione speciale reparto sport La Rinascente, 1925, litografia

Archivio la Rinascente, Milano

30 — Marcello Dudovich, La Rinascente. Fiera del bianco, 1922 ca., litografia

Archivio la Rinascente, Milano

31 — Marcello Dudovich, La Rinascente. Fiera del bianco, 1948 ca., litografia

Archivio la Rinascente, Milano

Fourteen sketches are also part of the collection, almost all of them by Dudovich. These are real paintings, original creations used to make the printed reproductions.

32 — Marcello Dudovich,
[Tessuti estivi a La Rinascente], 1947 ca., tecnica mista su carta

Archivio la Rinascente, Milano

33 — Marcello Dudovich,
[A La Rinascente bagni vacanze], 1949 ca., tecnica mista su carta

Archivio la Rinascente, Milano

34 — Marcello Dudovich,
A la Rinascente rinnovate il guardaroba, 1949 ca., tecnica mista su carta

Archivio la Rinascente, Milano

35 — [La Rinascente. Fiera del bianco], 1930 ca., tecnica mista su carta

Archivio la Rinascente, Milano

36 — La Rinascente. Fiera del bianco, 1930 ca., litografia

Archivio la Rinascente, Milano

This small yet valuable collection is an important documentary source for a better understanding of Rinascente’s commercial and communication strategies before the introduction of modern graphic design in the fifties.

The message the company wanted to communicate can in fact be perceived from the images in the posters. When Senator Borletti bought Rinascente in 1917, his aim was to raise the tone of the department store, combining value for money with high quality through materials, style and good taste, setting himself the objective of bring art closer to life. To increase the value of his products and to attract middle-class customers, the department store focused hugely on visual communication, with refined illustrations on advertising posters.

37 — >Le vetrine su piazza Duomo dei grandi magazzini La Rinascente, 1920 ca.

Touring Club Italiano, Milano

38 — La Rinascente, novità Autunno-Inverno, 1926-27, listino bimestrale n. 11, 5 ottobre 1926

Civica Raccolta delle Stampe Achille Bertarelli, Milano

39 — La Rinascente Autunno-Inverno 1925-26, supplemento n. 4, 31 gennaio 1926

Civica Raccolta delle Stampe Achille Bertarelli, Milano

40 — Marcello Dudovich,
La Rinascente, 1925, litografia

Civica Raccolta delle Stampe Achille Bertarelli, Milano

41 — Marcello Dudovich,
A la Rinascente acquisto a occhi chiusi. Apertura di stagione, 1950, litografia

Archivio la Rinascente, Milano

Marcello Dudovich

The collection, comprising almost 100 works by Marcello Dudovich, including posters and sketches, also gives better insight into the knowledge of this great poster designer and above all of the thirty-year relationship between the artist and the department store. From 1921 to 1956, Dudovich designed almost all Rinascente’s advertising posters, linking his style code to the department store’s image. This collaboration marked an era in the history of this company and artistic advertising in general, with posters that have become part of the collective imagination.

42 — Marcello Dudovich nel suo studio. Immagini realizzate per la Rinascente, 1950

Archivi Farabola, Vaiano Cremasco

43 — Marcello Dudovich,
La Rinascente. Novità di stagione primavera-estate, 1923 ca., litografia

Civica Raccolta delle Stampe Achille Bertarelli, Milano

44 — Marcello Dudovich,
La Rinascente. Fiera del bianco. Vendita speciale, 1926 ca., litografia

Archivio la Rinascente, Milano

45 — Marcello Dudovich,
La Rinascente. Vendita speciale pelliccerie, 1923, litografia

Archivio la Rinascente, Milano

The artist employed a fresh, soft touch to create figurative posters that featured a mood that was always serene, of an apparent simplicity that did not, however, conceal his painting skills. His images were emphasised by elegant outlines against bright backgrounds, “in a synthesis of line and colour that exalted the Liberty style”, that however had a sculptural quality thanks to the hatching he used to create a chiaroscuro effect. He generated an image suitable for each sector of merchandise, but the stars of his posters were above all fashion and female figures, the first icons of fashion and the visual spokespeople for a middle-class ideal of beauty and elegance, to which the department store’s clientele could relate.

46 — Marcello Dudovich nel suo studio. Immagini realizzate per la Rinascente, 1950

Archivi Farabola, Vaiano Cremasco

47 — Marcello Dudovich,
La Rinascente, 1921 ca., litografia

Civica Raccolta delle Stampe Achille Bertarelli, Milano

48 — Marcello Dudovich,
La Rinascente, 1925, litografia

Civica Raccolta delle Stampe Achille Bertarelli, Milano

Rinascente’s advertising message was actually based on the idea of good value fashion suited to elegant, modern women, according to the concept of democratising luxury and the intent to win back that slice of the market that had been lost by the Magazzini Bocconi, the more well-to-do class, by communicating the message that the lower prices of Rinascente did not mean poor quality. All this was visually translated into Dudovich’s sophisticated posters.

49 — Marcello Dudovich, La Rinascente. Dal 15 febbraio vendita del bianco, 1922 ca., litografia

Archivio la Rinascente, Milano

50 — Marcello Dudovich,
I tessuti dell'orchidea, Albene Rhodia alla Rinascente, 1935-1940 ca., litografia

Archivio la Rinascente, Milano

51 — Marcello Dudovich,
La Rinascente, 1925-1931 ca., litografia

Civica Raccolta delle Stampe Achille Bertarelli, Milano

The women depicted by this poster artist from Trieste are young, elegant, emancipated, and, at times, enigmatic under huge hats that hide their eyes.

52 — Marcello Dudovich, La Rinascente. Dal 15 febbraio vendita del bianco, 1925, litografia

Archivio la Rinascente, Milano

They are both homemakers, attentive to their households, and worldly wise, always ready to travel, with a style suitable for the mountains, the sea or the countryside, as the occasion demands.

53 — Marcello Dudovich,
La Rinascente. Articoli da viaggio, 1925, litografia

Archivio la Rinascente, Milano

54 — Marcello Dudovich, La Rinascente. Articoli per villeggiatura, 1923-1926, litografia

Archivio la Rinascente, Milano

55 — Marcello Dudovich, La Rinascente. Articoli per spiaggia e campagna. Vendita speciale, 1927 ca., litografia

Archivio la Rinascente, Milano

56 — Marcello Dudovich, La Rinascente. Vendita speciale articoli per spiaggia e montagna, 1930 ca., litografia

Archivio la Rinascente, Milano

Refined at social events, wrapped in cosy furs in the winter and light clothing in the summer.

57 — Marcello Dudovich, La Rinascente. Novità di stagione autunno-inverno, 1922 ca., litografia

Archivio la Rinascente, Milano

A woman with a thousand facets to her personality, placed in well-known settings that represented dreams within reach, interpreting the desires of any Italian woman and easily met by a trip to the department stores of Rinascente.

The figures are never static, they are always busy in small gestures that emphasise the product being advertised, highlighting a particularly meaningful moment of use.

58 — Marcello Dudovich, Rinascente. Novità d'autunno, 1938 ca., litografia

Archivio la Rinascente, Milano

59 — Marcello Dudovich, La Rinascente. Vendita speciale pelliccerie, 1928, litografia

Archivio la Rinascente, Milano

At times they seem to approach the observer, hinting at a sensual gait.

60 — Marcello Dudovich, La Rinascente. Novità di stagione, 1930 ca., litografia

Archivio la Rinascente, Milano

61 — Marcello Dudovich,
Rinascente. X mostra moda italiana del raion e del fiocco, 1936-1940 ca., litografia

Archivio la Rinascente, Milano

As an alternative to the female figure, there are cute little cartoon animals in a series of different sketches with an ironic tone.

62 — Marcello Dudovich,
[La Rinascente. Vendita speciale casalinghi e arredamento della casa], 1928 ca., tecnica mista su carta intelata

Archivio la Rinascente, Milano

63 — Marcello Dudovich, Rinascente. Strenne e giocattoli, s.d., litografia

Archivio la Rinascente, Milano

64 — Marcello Dudovich, La Rinascente. Strenne giocattoli, 1927-1929 ca., litografia

Archivio la Rinascente, Milano

Spanning a wide chronological period, the posters in the collection also allow the stylistic evolution of Dudovich’s posters to be traced. He was particularly busy with Rinascente in the twenties, when he did his best creations for the department store, at a rate of five or six posters a year. Here he abandons the more two-dimensional images of his previous works, moving on to more chiaroscuro images, achieving a more pictorial result. A plasticity that, from the thirties, was to gain even more volume, tending towards a geometric style that leads to a sort of banalisation of the typical forms of the “prevailing aesthetic code” with a palette of colours that became increasingly less bright, containing more neutral backgrounds.

65 — Marcello Dudovich, Alla Rinascente novità mare e montagna, 1934, litografia

Archivio la Rinascente, Milano

66 — Marcello Dudovich, Alla Rinascente mare e monti, 1935, litografia

Archivio la Rinascente, Milano

67 — Marcello Dudovich, Rinascente. Mare montagna, 1940, litografia

Archivio la Rinascente, Milano

The icons, too, used in his posters were definitely influenced by the rhetoric typical of this era, such as for example, a poster in which a dagger stands out, or another with monumental classic columns through which an indistinct crowd of black shirts is passing.

68 — Marcello Dudovich,
Autarchia. X mostra dei prodotti italiani Rinascente. Prodotti italiani prodotti di fiducia, 1935-1940 ca., litografia

Archivio la Rinascente, Milano

69 — Marcello Dudovich,
Alla Rinascente prezzo qualità. Novità di stagione. Grandi Magazzini di Novità Piazza Colonna, 1932-1933 ca., litografia

Archivio la Rinascente, Milano

Some of the posters from this period, characterised by greater geometry, are influenced by his young pupil Walter Resentera, together with whom he was to produce some of Rinascente's posters.

70 — Walter Resentera,
La Rinascente. Mare, monti, campagna, 1947, litografia

Archivio la Rinascente, Milano

The advertising copy was then perfectly suited to figurative representation, harmonious with the style of the image and over the years undergoing the same changes. While the name “Rinascente” in the 1920s was written in very elegant italics, by the 1930s it had become larger, heavier and was often in block letters.

71 — Marcello Dudovich, La Rinascente. Strenne giocattoli, 1925 ca., litografia

Archivio la Rinascente, Milano

72 — Marcello Dudovich, La Rinascente. Novità autunnali, 1935, litografia

Archivio la Rinascente, Milano

Between 1948 and 1956, when the department store was being rebuilt after the war, Dudovich produced his last, still beautiful, posters, when these artistic adverts were starting to make way for new advertising graphics.

73 — Marcello Dudovich,
Tessuti estivi a la Rinascente, 1949 ca., litografia

Archivio la Rinascente, Milano

74 — Marcello Dudovich,
A la Rinascente apertura di stagione, 1949, litografia

Archivio la Rinascente, Milano

75 — Marcello Dudovich,
La Rinascente. Vacanze, 1955, litografia

Archivio la Rinascente, Milano

This is when he created the poster announcing the reopening of the Neapolitan store, with a painting of Pulcinella holding a scale model of the new building, or a triumphant blue and yellow flag with the new lR logo announcing the inauguration of the new Milan store in 1950.

76 — Marcello Dudovich, La Rinascente torna a Napoli più grande e più bella, 1948 ca., litografia

Archivio la Rinascente, Milano

77 — Marcello Dudovich, lR. Si riapre a Milano in Piazza Duomo il 4 dicembre, 1950, litografia

Archivio la Rinascente, Milano