LUCE NELLE TENEBRE

Original Italian 55 inch x 78 inch 4-Fogli Poster for the 1941 Mario Mattoli Romance LUCE NELLE TENEBRE (LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS), based on the novella by D.H. Lawrence and starring Fosco Giachetti, Alida Valli, Clara Calamai, Enzo Billitoti and Carlo Capanini.

Alberto Serrani, a mining engineer, meets doctor’s daughter the sweet and simple Marina and the notorious and frivolous Clara who falls for him immediately.

Poster art by Luigi Martinati (1893 – 1983). An Italian illustrator, advertiser and painter. Born in Florence, he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts. He moved to Rome in 1911 and began as an apprentice in the studio of the poster painter Federico Ballester (Rome 1868-1926). Immediately devoting himself to advertising, he designed posters of various subjects and themes between 1923 and 1941, from commercial advertising billboards to tourist signs, from political propaganda posters to large celebratory events.

In the mid-1940s, he joined with two creators of Italian film poster design, Anselmo Ballester and Alfredo Capitani, establishing the BCM studio, a company dedicated exclusively to the production of advertising film posters, which produced a considerable number of memorable images with a realistic imprint. Martinati’s personal style in cinema is characterized in the foreground by a large portrait shot in combination with a minor scene.

In 1967 he decided to devote the rest of his career to painting.

The poster is in very good folded condition with slight separation on some of the folds.