L'Apéritif Amer Picon
Designer
Severo Pozzati
Italy, 1895 - 1983
Datec. 1928
MediumLithograph
Dimensions50 1/4 x 35 1/2 in. (127.6 x 90.2 cm)
ClassificationsPoster
Credit LineGift of Galerie 1 2 3
Object numberPH.8764
DescriptionThis poster by Severo Pozzati (also known under the pseudonym "Sepo" seen in the poster at upper left), with its streamlined Art Deco forms, suggests the energy of a moment in which a waiter spritzes seltzer into a glass of Amer Picon, popular French orange-flavored bitters, as he speeds to a customer, perhaps in a busy café. Amer Picon began, like many such concoctions, as a medicinal remedy; it was created in 1837 by Gaeton Picon after he contracted dysentery while serving within the French Army in Algeria. It not only healed him but the international success of the product, combining oranges, alcohol, and quinine, was later assured after it won a bronze medal at the 1862 International Exhibition in London. Pozzati was an Italian painter and sculptor who trained at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna. In 1921, he became the director of the Parisian branch of Maga, the Bolognese advertising agency, and in 1925 was awarded the gold medal for advertising design at Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs in Paris. The following year he moved on to work with a number of other advertising agencies, including Ricordi in Milan, Chapuis in Bologna, and Publivox in Geneva, producing posters like this one combining Art Deco lines with some of the imagination and dynamism of the work of graphic designers like Leonetto Cappiello and A.M. Cassandre.On View
Not on view
