The Italian political cartoonist Gabriele Galantara,
who later became better known by his pen name Rata Langa,
was born in Montelupone in 1865 and as a child his talent for drawing was encouraged by his father.
But his father died in 1884 and his mother pressured Gabriele into
undertaking a mathematics degree at the University of Bologna .
Predictably he wasn't happy there, and soon switched to the Academy of Fine Arts.
In 1887 he collaborated with his friend Guido Podrecca to create the satirical
weekly magazine Bononia Ridet, which reflected their radically socialist political views.
And for a few years it was quite successful, but in 1891 they were accused of inciting a series
of unruly student demonstrations, and they were forced to shut down.
So Podrecca and Galantara, who was now using the name Rata Langa, left Bologna for Rome,
where they began publishing their new weekly magazine L’Asino in 1892.
L'Asino quickly became even more popular than their previous venture,
but in 1897 they were charged with producing subversive propaganda and shut down again.
They re-emerged in 1900 and as well as making much more use of colour printing
they toned down some of their more vehemently political material, and concentrated instead
on attacking the catholic church, which surprisingly was considered fair game.
And in this period Galantara produced satires of events outside Italy,
with frequent condemnations of the tyranny of the Russian Tsar.
Despite the use of colour Galantara was like many cartoonists before and since
essentially a linear illustrator, and it was his expressive inking which defined his work.
Nevertheless the application of colour was far from an afterthought
and did help to give his illustrations added substance.
Around this time time Galantara also travelled around Europe and contributed to other magazines
such as L'Assiette au Beurre in France.
And he created a large number of colour covers for the German magazine Der Wahr Jacob,
which held similar left-leaning views, and at this time it seemed he was almost
as committed to this magazine as he was to his own back in Italy.
But when the Great War began in 1914 Galantara turned his critical attention to Kaiser Wilhelm
and Germany's role in the conflict, and he continued his relentless attacks
until they were eventually defeated.
And when not directly attacking Germany he pulled no punches in his graphic condemnation
of the tragedy of war and the loss of life.
By the time the war ended the relationship between Galantara and Podrecca had become
strained over differences in political opinion, and L'Asino closed down yet again in 1918.
When publication resumed a couple of years later it was under Galantara's exclusive control,
but there were clear signs its best days were behind it and
the use of colour printing was seriously reduced.
At this time L'Asino voiced strong opposition to Benito Mussolini's
fascist party, and inevitably when they became the government L'Asino was shut down for good in 1925.
Not long after Galantara was arrested, forbidden to work
and kept under virtual house arrest up to his death in 1937 at the age of 72.
Ezio Anichini was born in Florence in 1886 and sadly
there's almost nothing else I can find in terms of biographical information.
But it is recorded that his father was a successful artist, so it seems quite
likely that it was in his father's studio that Ezio first learned to draw and paint.
It's also known that he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence in 1902,
but the earliest evidence of his work in print that I've found is his remarkable
series of tonal line and wash monochromes for an Italian edition of J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan,
which was first published in 1911. These engrossing and aesthetically
pleasing illustrations demonstrate great maturity of technique and it seems highly
likely that this is yet another instance where earlier work has simply not survived.
In the same year he illustrated the first in what would be several volumes
of The Story of World History written by Laura Orvieto.
There's remarkably little evidence of these books to be found but what little
there is features clean and simple line work in keeping with the classical subject matter.
In 1912 he created his first cover illustration for the Florence-based arts magazine
Scena Illustrata. The magazine had been published successfully since 1894 and was considered to be
the major platform for what was better known as Art Nouveau but Italians called Stile Liberty.
So by the time Anichini began creating these covers
it was relatively late in the day, and the movement was to an extent
already on the run from the onslaught of modernism spreading rapidly throughout Europe.
But these cover illustrations skilfully blended heroic and romantic mythological and classical
themes set within aesthetically balanced graphic constructions,
which clearly resonated with the influence of Alphonse Mucha.
And in addition to his ongoing cover work he also produced a series of 46 emotionally charged images
titled The Litany of Loreto.
They were first published as a magazine supplement for subscribers of Scena Illustrata in 1912 and
this collection was enthusiastically received by critics and patrons of the arts throughout Italy.
The images went on to also be distributed as a limited edition
series of lavishly presented postcards for collectors.
In 1919 Anichini's illustrations for Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy were published,
and this narrative collection was quite unlike his other work.
It featured none of the expected decoration found in his magazine covers
and they were arguably more intense than his devotional work,
with appropriately hellish flame colours printed over Anichini's densely crosshatched drawings.
But it was his professional association with Scena Illustrata which was his most enduring,
and it continued into the 1920s with very few if any concessions to the prevalent
graphic obsession with modernity and futurism in Italian art and design.
The last dated work I could find was from 1923 when Anichini would have been only 37 years old.
It's known he also worked as a painter and it may well be that's what he did
subsequently but all I can tell you for certain is he died in 1948 at the age of only 62.
Giuseppe Riccobaldi is not only ignored by the world at large but also seems to
be largely forgotten in Italy. He doesn't even get mentioned in Italian Wikipedia.
He was born in Florence in 1887 and studied art at the Ligustica Academy of Genoa.
And in 1908 he moved to Milan to work as an assistant theatrical set designer.
It's known that he was working as an illustrator by 1916,
but predictably there's nothing to show for it and consequently I'm
picking up his career in the early 1920s when examples of his poster design first appeared.
And from that point onward virtually his whole career would be as a highly
successful designer and illustrator of posters.
He quickly acquired a long line of clients from any number of industries
but travel and tourism were particularly prevalent in his strikingly modernist output.
Sadly I haven't been able to uncover any definitive information about Riccobaldi's
choice of medium. Examination of the images strongly suggests that both oils
and watercolour can be ruled out, and he was undoubtedly using a generally opaque medium
such as gouache or maybe tempera and applying it both flat and tonally with a wide range of brush
techniques, and apparently mechanical airbrush even within the same poster.
Whatever he was using to create these images he seemed to have an innate understanding of
how to make dramatically dynamic pictures which the viewer couldn't easily ignore.
His style owed a lot to the Futurist movement, which was the most prevalent
art style in Italy in the 1920s and it's probably not coincidental that from an Italian perspective
it seemed to gel with Mussolini's much vaunted aspirations of discipline and efficiency.
In 1928 he created the poster which is generally considered his most iconic image.
The picture was of two cars ascending a gigantic ramp made of Fiat logos,
and even if you've never heard of Riccobaldi you may well be familiar with this image,
as it's used in pretty much every book or blog about poster design.
His bold geometric compositions also won over a number of shipping companies and several of the
most prominent including Lloyd Triestino put his talents to work in their advertising campaigns.
And throughout the 1930s he remained a dominant graphic presence across Italy,
creating a large volume of advertising posters for major clients.
In the years after the Second World War Riccobaldi also began to work as an illustrator of children's
books, and for these he softened his usual graphic approach considerably. He also created a line only
edition of Carlo Collodi's Pinocchio but few would argue it was his most impressive work.
But this recent aspect of his career was alongside rather than instead of his poster work,
which continued throughout the later 1940s and 1950s. And the last dated
poster I found is this from 1959 at which point he drops out of sight completely.
It's more than likely that he simply retired, as he would have been 72 years old
and he died in Genoa in 1976 at the age if 89.
Mario Laboccetta is certainly one of the best
kept secrets I've encountered in the making of this series,
and given how visually engaging and distinctive his work was that makes no sense at all.
He was born in Naples in 1899 but most of his working life was spent in Paris.
Where he studied, if anywhere I have no idea.
When he first began working as an illustrator in the 1920s he spent most of his time creating
languid female figures frequently not wearing much in the way of clothing for several Parisian
lifestyle and fashion magazines, sometimes for reasons unknown using the name Marilac.
In 1930 he illustrated an edition of Voltaire's Candide,
but the only evidence I can find is the cover.
But In 1932 his edition of the Tales of Hoffmann was published in Paris,
and the ink and watercolour illustrations he created for this book
were a significant showcase for his highly distinctive stylistic approach.
Although undoubtedly representational they were far from realistic
and were possessed of an unearthly, occasionally surreal quality,
and many had clear echoes of avant garde stage and film set design.
A year later he created more watercolours for the first of 2 books by Baudelaire.
This was Les Paradis Artificiels, and in 1935 he also illustrated Les Fleurs du Mal,
but frustratingly there's only minimal evidence of his work for these books.
In the later 1930s he continued to create more overtly erotic material
for the magazine Seduction, but apart from this I can find nothing until 1951 and a couple of
compelling tempera painted fantasy illustrations from Guido Gozzano's story the Three Talismans.
And from this point on all the evidence seems to be tantalising glimpses of later projects
including several book covers from the early 1950s, some magazine covers, and a pair of
dazzlingly beautiful children's illustrations from a book of songs published in 1956.
In his later career it's known he returned to Italy and there he mainly worked as an artist
and also created set designs for theatrical productions.
And Mario Laboccetta died in 1988 when he was 89 years old.
And that's the end of this Italian quartet and I hope to see you next
time around when the next batch of heroes is ready.