Giuseppe Porcheddu, Pinocchio

Giuseppe Porcheddu, Pinocchio, Paravia 1942. Tempera su cartoncino colorato, cm 32x46.


Giuseppe Porcheddu, best known as Beppe Porcheddu was born in Torino, May 1st 1898 and disappeared in 1947, December 27th.
He is an Italian illustrator, potter and painter, master of the Italian illustration and graphic from the 20’s to the 40’s.
He starts appreciating and loving names such as Arthur Rackham and Edmund Dulac, all of this thanks to the first "Esposizione internazionale di umorismo" in Italia, held in Rivoli in 1911. At a very early age he debuts on “Corriere dei Piccoli” and on “Domenica dei Fanciulli”.
In 1916 he gets called up for military to fight during the First World War with the rank of a second lieutenant in Alpini. In the last days of the conflict he gets hurt so badly that he’s going to be limping for the rest of his life.
Starting from 1922, Porcheddu starts his own activity as dolls painter, toys designer and potts decorator and all of that gets exposed in 1929 at the exhibition of the production of the industry “Lenci”, at Galleria Pesaro in Milano.
In 1938 he puts his name on the scenography of “Ettore Fieramosca”, film by Alessandro Blasetti.
He collabs with Mondadori due to a personal request by Federico Pedrocchi; in fact he entrusts Porcheddu the scenography of "Il castello di San Velario" by Eros Belloni. It’s going to be published postmortem in two parts in 1948 in the Albi d'Oro di Topolino.
He also realizes “I viaggi di Gulliver” on behalf of “Topolino” but it will never be published.
His masterpiece is the “Pinocchio” illustration di Collodi (1942).
Porcheddu uses only three colors: brick red, sugar paper light blue and white lead, with eventually a touch of black. Thanks to his genius mind he realizes the drawings on light grey or beige cardboards, this gives a very specific chromatic value to the background that’s free from the drawing.
In “Pinocchio”, the artist’s graphic gives birth in every single piece to a system that to this day is still extraordinary modern.
In 1947, December 27th, he leaves his house due to a trip to Roma for an exhibition of his own paintings and disappears.