Luigi Martinati: Portraits That Sold Hollywood to Italy

From advertising to cinema

Born in Florence on 31 December 1893 and trained at its Academy of Fine Arts, Martinati moved to Rome in 1911 as an apprentice in the studio of Federico Ballester. Between 1923 and 1941 he designed commercial, tourist and celebratory posters and directed IGAP, one of Rome's main advertising agencies. After the Second World War he left general advertising to work only on film posters.

In the 1930s he moved into a studio at Via Emanuele Filiberto 190 in Rome, which he shared with the poster painter Tito Corbella. It stood a short walk from the A.P.E. printing works in Viale Castrense, which printed most of his posters from the 1930s to the 1950s. IGAP — Impresa Generale Affissioni Pubblicità — was a large concern: Marcello Dudovich and Marcello Nizzoli also worked with it.

With Anselmo Ballester and Alfredo Capitani he formed the BCM studio, known for memorable realist images. His collaboration with Warner Bros. ended in 1959; he continued with Cineriz and smaller companies until 1967, when he gave up film advertising to paint. He died in Rome on 31 December 1983, his ninetieth birthday.

The Martinati look

Martinati's posters typically place a large portrait of the star in the foreground with a smaller scene from the film beside or below it. The faces are realistic and glamorous, the colours warm, the composition simple enough to read from across the street.

Before cinema: sport, travel and state posters

His non-film posters of 1923–1941 show the range of a Roman advertising studio between the wars. Recorded examples include:

• a poster for the Italian Ski Federation of CONI, printed by I.G.A.P. in 1930 (132 × 93 cm);
• a 280 × 200 cm poster for the 1933 Crociera aerea del Decennale, the mass flight from Rome to Chicago and New York and back;
• the Italy–Poland boxing match of about 1935, now in the Salce collection of Treviso's civic museums;
• the world shooting championships held in Rome in September 1935, and armed-forces recruitment posters of 1935–36;
• the national anti-tuberculosis stamp campaign of 1939.

Catalogued posters and their printers

The printers trace his career: A.P.E. printed most of his work from the 1930s to the 1950s, alongside I.G.A.P., while later posters came from Moneta of Milan and Rome and, in the early 1960s, Vecchioni & Guadagno. Printer credits like these are one of the best ways to confirm a period poster — see the authenticity checklist.