Lot 95: Poster: GIAN LUCIANO SORMANI (1867- ?) MICCIO. Circa 1910. 77

GIAN LUCIANO SORMANI (1867- ?) MICCIO. Circa 1910.
77 1/2x53 1/4 inches. Stab. Grafico M. Norsa, Venice.
Conditon B+: restored losses, restoration and minor discoloration along vertical and horizontal folds; minor restoration in margins and image. Two sheets.
Sormani was born in Venice and lived in Naples where he was a teacher, and infrequent designer of posters. The tradition of Italian department stores relying heavily on poster advertising started with Mele, the great department store that employed only the best Italian artists and whose legacy of striking Art Nouveau imagery practically defines Italian turn-of-the-century graphics. However, the images created for the "Unione Cooperativa Miccio Napoli are quite similar in their decorative quality and size to the famous series of posters for Mele" (Bolaffi p. 210). Here, Sormani presents an idyllic upper-middle class scene, in which a fashionably dressed mother and her daughter, with their Afghan, are strolling in the hills above the Bay of Naples (note Mt. Vesuvius smoking in the background). Compositionally, thematically and psychologically, this poster easily can compete with the best posters from the Mele series.