Giuseppe Scalarini (1873-1948) - Italy

Noela Levi sent us the press release of the new website dedicated to  her great-grandfather, the famous Italian cartoonist Giuseppe Scalarini.

www.scalarini.it

This is what Noela wrote:

He is considered the creator of the satirical political cartoon in Italy. Satirical cartoonist for the newspaper of the Italian Socialist Party, the Avanti ! 1911 to 1925, and a fervent anti-militarist and pacifist, was then harshly persecuted by the Fascists. He used to sign his cartoons and drawings with a real unique puzzle format in its name: the stylized picture of a ladder, followed by the syllables “rini”

The site has four main sections:

BIBLIOGRAPHY Complete list of publications that have dealt with Scalarini, including a list of exhibition catalogs.

BIOGRAPHY: Portrait of the artist, related numerous, some unpublished.
In this section you will find: the transcripts of some processes in which the subject was Scalarini defendant, his confinement in the islands of Lampedusa, Ustica and imprisonment in concentration camps of histones (Large) and Bucchianico in Abruzzo, related to documents, photos and drawings the artist made during his stay in camp.
Finally, under “other documents” you can see some files that go from Crispin government until the fall of the fascist regime (1898 -1943). In documents prepared by the Police Officers, Police and Interior Ministry shows the movements “suspicious” that indicate the artist’s political activities.

WORKS OF ART: An annotated selection of the numerous collection of drawings, articles, essays and books that Scalarini has left us an example of all the drawings amounted to only about 13,000, the heirs, now has around 5000.

EXHIBITIONS: Detailed list of all the exhibitions showing. A kit you will find the covers of catalogs, posters and exhibitions for the latest selection of photos that illustrate the event (section under construction, only partly visible).

At the moment the site is only in Italian, we plan to translate it into English

yours  sincerely
Noela Levi

In The World Encyclopedia of Cartoons I found this information about Scalarini which I summarize:

• Italian cartoonist born in Mantua.
• unanimously regarded as Italy's major political cartoonist
• in the neatly drawn cartoons he captured some of the most dramatic moments in Italian history
• his cartoons rarely pitctured joy, hope or victory; though deeply convinced of the need to fight for change (he spent many years in prison during the 20 years of Mussolini's dictatorship) he always preferred to depict the cruel, malevolent face of the traditional enemies of the working class.
• he may have forced his caricatures, but it is indisputable that his grotesque and vehemently ferocious cartoons in many ways reflected reality.

Scalarini has also created numerous illustrations for children.
The illustrations below were published in the journal CORREIRE dei PICCOLI in the years 1938/1939.

How to learn in school the vowels with three bananas.

The vacuum cleaner

exprits imitation

an omelette

the Easter cake

To complete this article, Jean-Marie sent me the cover of a good anthology of his drawings. This book of 110 pages was published in 1991 during an exhibition of his drawings in Sicily. The mastermind behind this is Vito Maggio and 6 other people who presented the man's  oeuvre in the first 24 pages of this book.

Learn more:
www.scalarini.it
Scalarini Facebook fan page
caricature art by Scalarini