Cappiello designed this poster advertising Borea socks from Naples in 1923, some two years after he signed a contract with the great Parisian publishing firm of Devambez. In the spring of 1923, in fact, the Devembez studio held a major exhibition celebrating its collaboration with Cappiello and their respective roles in the development of the art of modern advertising; his association with the firm would continue until 1936. In this delightfully absurd image, Cappiello shows three men in overcoats and top hats, one with a monocle, examining the boxes of colorful socks on the table with an almost scholarly degree of attention; their dark forms are set off against a bright-orange ground. The composition is entirely characteristic of Cappiello’s unique and irreverent sensibility.
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