Prof. Francesco Carelli

China and watercolours on paper, 1937
Author’s ownership

 

Giuseppe Landsmann (in art with nickname Lucio Venna), since the age of fifteen he dedicated himself to painting in Florence under the guidance of the futurist Emilio Notte and in Florence he joined the famous group of Lacerba and sent his first paintings to Umberto Boccioni. With Notte, elaborated the anti – abstract futurist Manifesto e the geometric linear Manifesto. In the meantime, he knows Giacomo Balla, Fortunato Depero, Achille Funi, Alberto Martini. He presented 17 works at the Big National Futuristic Exhibition in Milan in 1919.

In 1922, Venna abandoned the painting and started designing advertising signs and dedicating himself full time to poster design. In fifteen years, he designed around a hundred posters and very many little posters, folders, calendars, many company brands, etc. with a prestigious creative and formal quality in the “Venna creation”. Together with Nissoli and Cassandre, he contributed to the renewal of the European advertising billboard. At the end of 1937, he largely interrupted his job as a poste artist to return to painting. Between 1938 and 1942, he took the technical artistic direction of “Scena Illustrata” and created a series of covers for the monthly and yearbook of Almanacco and for some books, never leaving painting.