Silvano Campeggi: Hollywood's Italian Poster Painter

From Florence to the Hollywood studios

Born in Florence on 23 January 1923, the son of a printer and typesetter, Campeggi grew up around graphics and studied at the art school of Porta Romana in Florence under painters such as Ottone Rosai and Ardengo Soffici. During the Second World War the American Red Cross commissioned him to paint portraits of American soldiers before they returned home, which deepened his knowledge of American music, film and culture.

After the war he moved to Rome, where he met the painter Orfeo Tamburi and the poster artist Luigi Martinati; his first film poster, in 1946, was for Riccardo Freda's Aquila nera (Black Eagle). Soon afterwards Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer asked him for the poster of Gone with the Wind — Clark Gable carrying Vivien Leigh as Atlanta burns. In the following decades he worked under contract with MGM and for Warner Bros., Paramount, Universal, Columbia, United Artists, RKO and 20th Century Fox.

His best-known images

• Marlon Brando astride his motorcycle in The Wild One, and a bare-chested James Dean.
• John Wayne in neckerchief and cowboy hat; Humphrey Bogart in a white dinner jacket.
• Liza Minnelli in derby hat and black stockings; Lauren Bacall in beret and cape.
• Portraits of Elizabeth Taylor, Ava Gardner, Rita Hayworth and Sophia Loren — and Marilyn Monroe, whom he first painted in the early 1950s and called the most enchanting woman he ever met.

Two of his designs became emblems of their films: the four white horses on a red ground for Ben-Hur, and Leslie Caron's face used as the dot on the i of Gigi — an image that also turns up on the cover of Pink Floyd's album Ummagumma.

Many of his sitters became friends: Ava Gardner asked him to accompany her down the red carpet at one of her premieres.

After the posters

In the 1970s, as television and newspaper advertising took over from painted posters, Campeggi returned to painting. His later commissions include five Risorgimento battle scenes for the Carabinieri, a portrait of Salvo D'Acquisto issued as an Italian postage stamp in 1975, a series of 35 images of Florence's Calcio Storico (1997) and a well-known portrait of Garibaldi. He received the Fiorino d'Oro in 2000.

In 2001 he painted the drappellone, the painted silk banner given to the winner, for Siena's August Palio, and in 2006 he drew his last poster, for the Italian stage musical Peter Pan. He died in Florence on 29 August 2018, the year the documentary As Time Goes By – L'uomo che disegnava sogni, directed by Simone Aleandri, was presented at the Rome Film Festival. For his centenary in 2023 Italy issued a postage stamp showing him in front of his Ben-Hur sketch.

Exhibitions of his film work include The Movies Through the Posters of Silvano Campeggi at Palazzo Medici Riccardi in Florence (1988, later shown in Paris and New York) and 3000 Times – The Art of the Movie Poster at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, New York (2007).

Collecting Campeggi posters

Because his clients were the Hollywood majors, Campeggi's posters carry Italian release titles that can differ from the originals — check the list of Italian titles of American films. First Italian releases of the Oscar winners — Cantando sotto la pioggia (Singin' in the Rain), Un americano a Parigi (An American in Paris), Gigi — are the most sought after; MGM classics were re-released often, so confirm the edition with the authenticity checklist.