Giuseppe Palanti

Giuseppe Palanti (30 July 1881 – 23 April 1946) was an Italian painter, illustrator, and urban planner, best known for his portraits, notably of Mussolini and Pius XI. He had a long collaboration with Teatro alla Scala in Milan, creating costume, set design and advertising material for multiple opera productions. He was also a major contributor towards the development of the seaside resort Milano Marittima.

Biography

Early life

Born in Milan to Giovanni Palanti, a carpenter and furniture maker and Virginia De Gaspari, a seamstress, of Cremonese descent, Palanti was orphaned at a young age. Although he completed elementary and technical schools, he is soon forced to find a job, and by 1895 finds employment drawing sketches for the Milanese fabric company, Scotti. At fifteen, he simultaneously enrolled in evening courses at both the ''Scuola Superiore d'Arte Applicata all'Industria'' (Higher School of Applied Arts in Industry), where he studied under Luigi Cavenaghi, and the ''Scuola degli Artefici dell'Accademia di Brera'' (School of Craftsmen of the Brera Academy). He also sought work as a decorator and poster designer, looking to apply his art practically. In 1898, he enrolled in the painting course at the Brera Academy, taught by Bignami, Mentessi, Pogliaghi and Tallone.Biographical information: Giuseppe Palanti
RKD – Netherlands Institute for Art History, accessed 20 Feb 2021 In 1899, while still a student, he won a competition to design the cover of the Milanese magazine ''La Promessa'', and posters for the ''Esposizione Floricola di Monza'' (Monza Flower Exhibition). In 1900, he won the Zogheb competition for best student of the School of Applied Art. Consequently, was awarded a study trip by the ''Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce'' which sent him to Paris to follow the Exposition Universelle, an experience that would influence his style, notably the exhibition pavilions and their advertising billboards. He wrote a detailed account of his interest in poster design, especially the floral work of Alphonse Mucha, and in the technical solutions of art applied to this industry. On graduating in 1901, he was invited by Cavenaghi to teach advanced composition at the School of Applied Art (''corso Superiore di composizione'') at the Brera Academy, which he would continue to do for ten years.

Early career

Palanti continued to design and illustrate the covers of sales catalogues for Milanese department stores from 1901 to 1912, working for the Italian Cooperative Union. From 1902, he began working with the Teatro alla Scala as a costume and set designer, as well as designing advertising posters until 1916. His work included among other things design for the first performance of Madame Butterfly by Giacomo Puccini in 1904. He also provided set and costume design for the 1905–06 opera season including The Marriage of Figaro and the La Dama di Picche; Simon Boccanegra in 1910–11, Romeo and Juliet and L'Armida; Don Carlos in 1912; Oberon in 1913; and La Battaglia di Legnano in 1916. He produced notable posters for performances of La fanciulla del West (1911), Isabeau (1912), and Parsifal (1914). In 1907 he became adjunct professor at the Academy's School of Ornament and at the Higher School of Applied Art to Industry (''Scuola superiore d'Arte Applicata all'Industria'') and from 1913 he replaced Ludovico Pogliaghi in the special decoration school at the Brera Academy. In 1902, he collaborated with the architect Gaetano Moretti to design furniture which was presented in Turin, and later in 1907 his work was used to decorate the Palazzo di Giustizia.Eroi dimenticati: Giuseppe Palanti: Biography
article, www.galleriarecta.it, accessed 21 February 2021 In 1906, he was asked to design a series of postcards for the Milan International World Fair.GIUSEPPE PALANTI AND MILAN’S EXPO 1906
www.italianways.com, accessed 22 Feb 2021 He would go on to participate in both the Centennial International Exposition in Buenos Aires, decorating the façade of the Italian pavilion, and the Brussels International Exposition decorating the ceiling the Italian pavilion in 1910.

Milano Marittima

Palanti was heavily involved in the development of the seaside resort Milano Marittima, north of Cervia. Originally an area of uncultivated coastal pine forests, in 1907 the Municipal Administration of Cervia ceded a vast area along the coast to the Maffei company, allowing them to build villas, parks and gardens in order to create a resort town. The ''Società Milano Marittima per lo sviluppo della spiaggia di Cervia'' (Milano Marittima Society for the development of the beach of Cervia) was created in 1911 to progress development, which Palanti quickly joined. He was an advocate of the garden city model, influenced by British urban planner Ebenezer Howard.E MILANO MARITTIMA COMPIE CENT'ANNI
www.famigliacristiana.it, accessed 22 Feb 2021 His vision was of an urban project which would create a new city in which tourist accommodation blended with the surrounding nature. Designed to appeal to the middle class, it consisted of a series of decadent art nouveau villas set within the pine forest. In 1912 he drew up the master plan for the new municipality of Cervia and the plans for the first villas on the coast.

WW1

In 1915 Palanti attempted to enlist in the Italian Air Force as an aviator during World War I. His application was rejected as the Ministry of Education (''Ministero della Pubblica Istruzione'') felt he would be of more use as a teacher.Eroi dimenticati: Giuseppe Palanti, arte e propaganda
article, Il Primato Nazionale, 28 July 2019 He did however contribute to the war effort, designing illustrated postcards and pamphlets which celebrated Italy and provided a source of anti-German propaganda. In 1917, together with his brother Mario, he developed a project for a naval machine: the 'Invulnerable Destroyer' (''Distruttore invulnerabile'').

Later life and death

In 1921 Palanti joined the ''Chiaro di Luna'' artistic and literary movement, working against the 'antics' of the avant-gardes. In 1923 he was appointed holder of the chair of decoration of the High School of the Brera Academy. In 1924 In the post war period, he began to produce prolific work for private clients amongst the Milanese bourgeoisie looking for portraiture, and occupied a role few contemporaries were offering. His clients included, amongst others, Mata Hari and Grazia Deledda. In 1924 he was commissioned by the Apostolic Nunciature to Argentina to paint a portrait of Pius XI. In 1925 he painted Vittorio Emanuele III and Queen Elena. In 1928 he painted a portrait of Benito Mussolini, which became one of the official images of il Duce, reproduced in newspapers and in the Encyclopedia Treccani. It remains to date one of the official portraits. In 1933 he became a member of the Higher Council of National Education (''Ministero dell'Educazione Nazionale''), who in 1934 appointed him vice president of the Brera Academy. In the 1940s he participated with his son, the architect Giancarlo Palanti, in the furnishing of the Villa Necchi at the Portalupa, painting numerous paintings including a portrait of Lina Ferrari Necchi measuring 294 cm x 400 cm. His career continued successfully until the early 1940s when WW2 impacted his ability to work. He died in 1946 in Milan at the age of 64, having last exhibited at ''La Società Patriottica''. He is buried in the Monumental Cemetery of Milan (''Cimitero Monumentale di Milano'').

Work and themes

Palanti was an eclectic artist, notably producing oil paintings, preferring portraits and nudes,Giuseppe Palanti (1881 – 1946, Italian)
LA CONCHIGLIA DI VENERE: The Nude in Art History, accessed 23 Feb 2021 as well as landscapes and waterscapes. He also worked with decorative arts, including fabric design, ceramics, stained glass, wrought iron, metal objects and furniture.Le Raccolte d’Arte dell’Ospedale Maggiore di Milano
Lombardia Beni Culturali, accessed 21 Feb 2021 He was an illustrator who produced graphics for posters and book covers, in addition to creating sketches for costume and set design for the Teatro alla Scala. In later life, he worked as an architect and urban planner, integral to the design of the seaside town Milano Marittima. His modernity looked to the strength, safety and joy of a middle and upper bourgeois class at the beginning of the twentieth century: industrialists, professionals, ladies of high society, who enjoyed a confident pre-war Italy in economic growth. Almost all of his activity, over the years, was oriented towards applied art, without however encroaching on a purely technical style, as in the case of graphics, inclined as he was instead to decorative solutions expressed in pictorial terms. Rich and multifaceted interventions in the so-called minor arts, from designs for fabrics to ceramics from Faenza, to stained glass windows, to wrought iron, to the applications of leather and metals for Ceruti furniture, to collaborations with the architect Gaetano Moretti. The creation of decorative paintings on bookshelves or furniture doors.

Personal life

Palanti was the older brother of architect Mario Palanti. He married Ada Romussi, daughter of politician and journalist Carlo Romussi, and was father to the architect Giancarlo Palanti and Maria Virginia.

Legacy

His pupils included Pina Sacconaghi, Francesco Carini, Carlo Ceci, Augusto Colombo, Goliardo Padova and Sigismondo Martini. Exhibitions recently dedicated to Palanti include the Spoleto Festival in 2001 the Civic Gallery Torre Avogadro in Lumezzane in 2003,
Corriere della Sera, 29 marzo 2003 and ''Giuseppe Palanti. Pittore, urbanista, illustratore'' in Cervia in 2012.GIUSEPPE PALANTI. Pittore, urbanista, illustratore
Italia Liberty, accessed 20 Feb 2021 The street ''Via Giuseppe Palanti'' in southern Milan is named after him, as is ''Viale Giuseppe Palanti'' in Cervia.

Notable works

*''Ritratto di Dante Tomasini'', 1942, oil on canvas
*''Ritratto di Graziosa Torriani Tomasini'', 1942, oil on canvas
*''Ritratto di Amilcare Beretta'', 1943, oil on canvas
*''Ritratto di Pio XI'', 1924, oil on canvas
*''Ritratto di Alessandro Volta'', oil on canvas
*''Ritratto di Mussolini (Il Macigno)'', 1928, oil on canvas
*''Ritratto di Queen Elena'', 1925, oil on canvas
*''Ritratto di Vittorio Emanuele III'', 1925, oil on canvas

Honours and awards

* 1927 – Order of St. Sylvester, CommanderPALANTI, Giuseppe: Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani - Volume 80 (2014)
www.treccani.it, accessed 21 Feb 2021
* 1905 Medaglia d'Oro, Augusto Baelz, Mostra d'Arte Applicata alla Pubblicità

See also

* Palanti
* Mario Palanti
* Teatro alla Scala

References

Bibliography

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External links

Giuseppe Palanti ritratto fotografico, 1912, di Emilio SommarivaGiuseppe Palanti ritratto fotografico, ottobre 1929, di Emilio SommarivaGiuseppe Palanti: ritratto di Carlo BaiziniMuseo del paesaggioBeni Culturali LombardiaMostra del 1974

www.villanecchi.itLe Vie d'ItaliaNatura morta con AngurieFondatori di Milano MarittimaMuseo Nazionale della Scienza e della Tecnologia

{{DEFAULTSORT:Palanti, Giuseppe
Italian male painters
1881 births
1946 deaths
Italian painters
Brera Academy alumni
Burials at the Cimitero Monumentale di Milano
20th-century Italian painters
Painters from Milan
Academic staff of Brera Academy
20th-century Italian male artists