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International and Interdisciplinary Conference on Image and Imagination

IMG 2019: Proceedings of the 2nd International and Interdisciplinary Conference on Image and Imagination pp 21–35Cite as

A Mythological Hand with 45 Fingers. The Olivetti Advertising Office in the 1930s

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Part of the book series: Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing ((AISC,volume 1140))

Abstract

Critical interest in Olivetti has never been so strong. Studies on the Ivrea company continue to stream in from a diverse range of fields including economic history, the history of social thought, that of literature, that of architecture and those of design, and graphic design.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Recent studies include: De Giorgi and Morteo (2008), Fiorentino (2014), Toschi (2018), Carter (2018, 2019).

  2. 2.

    Zveteremich, Organizzazione Ufficio Pubblicità Olivetti, company document, 1931, Archivio Olivetti, Ivrea.

  3. 3.

    Monguzzi (1981).

  4. 4.

    The image, an offset print, is described as a photomontage for a calendar in Monguzzi (1981, 4).

  5. 5.

    Fiorentino (2014, 143–144).

  6. 6.

    Zorzi, Relazione per audiovisivo, Milan, December 17, 1973, Archivio Storico Olivetti; cited in Fiorentino (2014, 122).

  7. 7.

    The recent reawakening of interest in Schawinsky has not extended to his Milan period and it was not explored in Blume et al. (2015).

  8. 8.

    See Altea and Camarda (2015); Musina (2013). Nivola was hired in autumn 1936, recommended by the parents of his future wife Ruth Guggenheim, who were friends of Olivetti, as well as Pagano, to assist with the Piano Regolatore della Valle d’Aosta, an Olivetti enterprise that in the end came to naught. It was Nivola who suggested hiring Pintori, who joined the team immediately after.

  9. 9.

    For Fancello, who died painfully young on the Albanian front in 1941, see Altea and Stringa (2016).

  10. 10.

    For Nivola, Pintori and Fancello in Monza, see Cassanelli et al. (2003).

  11. 11.

    See Stone (1998).

  12. 12.

    For Sinisgalli’s recollections, see Sinisgalli (1955, 23). For those of Nivola, see Baggiani and Pinna Parpaglia, unpublished interview with Nivola (1980), Nuoro, Ilisso Archive, 34.

  13. 13.

    Colizzi and Bazzani (2014).

  14. 14.

    Nivola (1988).

  15. 15.

    Nivola in Baggiani and Pinna Parpaglia (1980, 33–34), Nuoro, Ilisso Archive.

  16. 16.

    Colizzi and Bazzani (2014, 8).

  17. 17.

    “This Zveteremich got a big head, he thought that, since war was coming, he wanted to get involved with the national propaganda … He was a strange one. Everyone treated him well while he was at Olivetti, he was a spender, but then when he left Olivetti, they all closed the doors in his face, he went to Rome …” Baggiani and Pinna Parpaglia (1980, 33). A trip to Rome with Pagano in August 1938 having born no real fruit, Zveteremich continued working in Milan, including, among other things, consulting for the advertising agency controlled by the regime, UPI (see Colizzi and Bazzani (2014, 13–14)).

  18. 18.

    Letter from Olivetti to Zveteremich, Ivrea, July 13, 1938. Archivio Storico Olivetti. The graphic designer assigned to the “demonstration” brochure for the M40 is not noted; it seems unlikely that it was the one produced by Schawinsky in 1934.

  19. 19.

    Saibene (2017). Saibene also notes that there is a draft in the Olivetti archive for a caption by Mario Labò for the 1938 Triennale that attributes the graphic design to Schawinsky, the text to Sinisgalli, and the cover Nivola.

  20. 20.

    Nivola (1988).

  21. 21.

    “Some of the projects that Svetteremich [sic] assigned to me were beyond my abilities. For example, the one for completing a brochure on the typefaces of Olivetti typewriters that had been started by Santi Shavisky [sic], a top-notch German artist coming from the Bauhaus.” Nivola (1988).

  22. 22.

    Persico had introduced the continuous, horizontal page back in 1930, when he was an editor at Belvedere. On Persico as a graphic designer, see Modiano (1935 [but 1936], 231–232).

  23. 23.

    Sinisgalli (1938).

  24. 24.

    Meikle (1995).

  25. 25.

    Here as well, there is disagreement over the attribution of the images. M. Siracusa (“Campagna pubblicitaria,” in De Giorgi and Morteo (2008, 64)) indicates only Pintori as the author of the work.

  26. 26.

    Vittorini (1939).

  27. 27.

    Fiorentino (2014, 73).

  28. 28.

    Sinisgalli (1955).

  29. 29.

    Nivola (1988, 32). The artist was more explicit elsewhere: “I was the one who got Sinisgalli in at Olivetti, and then the bastard didn’t give me anything to do …,” Baggiani and Pinna Parpaglia (1980).

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Acknowledgements

All the images are courtesy of Archivio Storico Olivetti, except for the Fig. 4 that is courtesy of Fondazione Nivola.

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  1. Dipartimento di Scienze Umanistiche e Sociali, Università di Sassari, Sassari, Italy

    Giuliana Altea

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  1. Giuliana Altea
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Correspondence to Giuliana Altea .

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  1. University of Sassari, Alghero, Italy

    Enrico Cicalò

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Altea, G. (2020). A Mythological Hand with 45 Fingers. The Olivetti Advertising Office in the 1930s. In: Cicalò, E. (eds) Proceedings of the 2nd International and Interdisciplinary Conference on Image and Imagination. IMG 2019. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol 1140. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41018-6_4

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