Benito Jacovitti, Illustrazione per Pinocchio

Benito Jacovitti, Illustrazione per Pinocchio. Chine colorate su cartoncino leggero, cm 45x31,5.


Benito Jacovitti was born in Termoli, the 9 of March 1923 and died in Roma, the 3 of December in 1997. He is an Italian author who created famous comic characters like “Cocco Bill” and “Cip l'arcipoliziotto”, graphic novels like “Kamasutra” and the famous “Diario Vitt”, published starting from 1949 and that in between the 1960s and 1970s sold dozens of copies.
Jacovitti is definitely worthy of the genius name which he was.
He is recognized as one of the most important Italian comic authors of the twentieth century. His big production is characterized by a very personal style with surreal details: the salami and the slugs are one of his identity traits. Jacovitti is not aligned with the 1960s cultural conformism and an unfounded accuse of fascism sustainer has as a result some missing big collaboration. Then he fully enters into the Italian comic history mostly thanks to his caricatural trait when it comes to characters. His work has had a good feedback from the critics and it also happened that it met with the history of his own country.
He confronts himself with the monument of literature which is “Pinocchio” by
renewing the traditional iconography of Carlo Collodi and gifting the publishing a masterpiece of illustration.
Starting from the 1970s he collabs with the monthly “Linus” directed by Oreste Del Buono on a work that is definitely for a more mature audience.
The recognizable anatomy of his little characters, their expressions sometimes joyful other times grotesque, his salami, snakes, and slugs with all different expressions plus other subjects, way more different and spread in the most unthinkable places, make him popular among the big public. Some of his characters have also been subjects in carousels in the 1960s and “Cocco Bill” has been the main character in an animated series in 2001.