L’Adriatico nell’arte del manifesto

From June 29 to September 29, 2024, the municipal gallery of Monfalcone will showcase sixty posters highlighting the allure of sea travel, from the earliest steamships to transatlantic liners. The exhibition will focus on the history of ships that have contributed to the success of shipping companies, particularly those originating from the Adriatic region and the port of Trieste.

This initiative is organized by the Municipality of Monfalcone in collaboration with the Ponti d'Europa Association, with support from the Carigo Foundation and the Friuli Venezia Giulia Region.

In fact, from the second half of the nineteenth century the Austrian Lloyd , founded in 1836, then from 1919 the Trieste Lloyd, one of the oldest shipping companies in the world, to the Cosulich line , which was responsible for the foundation of the Monfalcone shipyards in 1907, they rely on the new art of advertising to promote the new routes that crossed the Adriatic with the first steamers.

After the opening of the Suez Canal, already at the end of the 19th century the companies reached Asia, Africa, America and Australia, transporting goods, passengers and emigrants, finally celebrating, particularly during the 1930s, the new social rituals of cruises. In addition to focusing on a refined and comfortable "Italian style", the services and furnishings, developed in the large ships released from the Monfalcone shipyards , such as the luxury transatlantic ships Saturnia and Vulcania , relied on the suggestion of artistic images with a strong emotional impact to reach an ever wider audience.

Artists such as Marcello Dudovic from Trieste , one of the fathers of modern Italian poster art, or Paolo Klodich , specialized in the depiction of marines and ships, names such as those of Giovanni Patrone or Filippo Romoli , among the greatest Italian poster artists, up to a master of avant-garde like Lucio Fontana and many others, were active in entire promotional campaigns, thus signing the posters on display here, all works of the highest technical quality, coming from one of the most prestigious Italian private collections, crossing styles and trends, from late nineteenth-century naturalism to linear stylizations of Liberty, to the robust squaring of twentieth-century art, enhanced by brilliant and bold chromatic backgrounds.

The exhibition will present sixty original historical posters and will be accompanied by a catalog raisonné, guided tours, stage readings, conferences and public meetings, and is linked to a broader project of study and valorization of the lithographic technique promoted in 2024 by the European Triennial of 'Engraving, while a section of the same exhibition will display marine-themed advertising materials, specially created with different techniques and materials, by the students of the graphics course at the GB Tiepolo Academy of Fine Arts in Udine.

Partners of the initiative are the Ponti d'Europa Association, the Fincantieri Foundation, the Academy of Fine Arts of Udine, the European Triennial of Engraving and Fish, the Federation for overcoming handicaps.