Anselmo Ballester: Master of the Classic Italian Film Poster

A painter's son in Rome

Ballester was the son of Federico Ballester, a Roman painter of Spanish descent, and followed his father's work from childhood, producing his first pieces at fifteen. After studying at Rome's Academy of Fine Arts he specialised in film advertising, working for the major production houses of the silent era. His studio was in Via della Croce and later in Via della Passeggiata di Ripetta.

Clients and celebrated posters

From 1914 he worked for Italian companies such as Cines, Caesar Film, Titanus and Minerva, and for the American majors in Italy, including Fox, Paramount, MGM, Warner Bros., Columbia and RKO. His Italian posters for American films include Shanghai Express (1932), Modern Times (1936), Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), Heaven Can Wait (1943), Spellbound (1945), The Lady from Shanghai (1948), Salome (1953) and On the Waterfront (1954). In the 1930s he also painted posters for Alida Valli's Italian films.

Italian cinema kept him just as busy. In 1930 he prepared the poster sketches for La canzone dell'amore, the first Italian sound film, and his later Italian posters include Vecchia guardia (1933), M.A.S. (1942) and Roma città aperta (1945). European films released in Italy reached audiences through his artwork too: Le quattro piume (The Four Feathers), Il ladro di Bagdad (The Thief of Bagdad), Narciso nero (Black Narcissus), Scarpette rosse (The Red Shoes) and Legittima difesa (Quai des Orfèvres).

Advertising, politics and portraits

Film work dominated, but Ballester also painted a smaller number of commercial and political posters. Recorded examples include the Magazzini Coen department store (1922), Sanremo (1925), the Rome Grand Prix motor race (1925), Cognac al caffè (1925) and Assicurazioni d'Italia (1936). He painted film posters without a break until the early 1960s, then gave up poster work to paint pictures and portraits. He died in Rome on 22 September 1974.

From sketch to poster

Ballester fixed his ideas in several small sketches painted on scraps of paper or card. Once the client chose one, he painted the finished design (bozzetto) in tempera. The bozzetto went to the printer, who added or completed the lettering and printed it as a 100 × 140 or 140 × 200 cm poster and as locandine.

With Luigi Martinati and Alfredo Capitani he formed the BCM studio to share the large volume of commissions — which is why some designs of the period are attributed to the studio rather than to one painter.

Where to see his work

Ballester's sketches and posters are held by the CSAC study centre and archive of the University of Parma, which published the monograph Anselmo Ballester: le origini del manifesto cinematografico in 1981, and by the Cinema a Pennello museum in Montecosaro, in the Marche. His posters also appear in the Museum of Modern Art's book Italian Film Posters (2003) and in the catalogue of the 1995 Rome exhibition Il cinema dipinto.