Prof. Francesco Carelli


Marcello Dudovich was an Italian painter, illustrator, and poster designer. Together with Leonetto Cappiello, Adolfo Hohenstein, Giovanni Maria Mataloni and Leopoldo Metlicovitz he is considered one of the progenitors of Italian poster design.
Marcello Dudovich was born in 1878 in Trieste and attended the prestigious Royal School in Trieste. Upon completing his studies, he began working with his father as a lithographer and illustrator for advertising art, prints and posters. He relocated from Trieste to Milan in 1897 after attending a professional art school. He was recruited as a lithographer by Ricordi, a music publisher, thanks to his father’s friendship with the illustrator and cartoonist Leopoldo Metlicovitz, and was given charge over advertisement design. In 1899 he transferred to Bologna, working here for the publisher Edmondo Chappuis, designing billboards, book covers and illustrations for publications such as Italia Ride in 1900 e Fantasio in 1902. In 1900 he won the “Gold Medal” at the Paris World Fair.
In 1905 Dudovich returned to Milan to rejoin Ricordi. Here, in the next few years, he designed some of his well-known posters, including a series of famous advertising posters for the department store “ in Naples and “Borsalino”. In the 1920s he made several posters for the Milan department store, La Rinascente, and in 1922 he was appointed artistic director of “Igap”. Famous because of his big colored advertising posters put on streets and places in many cities, is known as able to presents images of great actuality and daily stories under modern key. Dudovich is celebrated as one of Italy’s greatest poster artists. He was inspired by Edward Penfield, by his friend and teacher Adolfo Hohenstein and by Alphonse Mucha. But ultimately his reputation comes from his having developed his own very distinctive and richly colored style.