Art Photographed by Art: Painters and Sculptors in Pirelli Magazine Illustrations
“A photograph of a work of art—be it architecture, sculpture, or even painting—is itself a critical presentation of the work. It is always an interpretation,” wrote the art critic Guido Ballo, echoing his brother Aldo’s view that the purpose of photography is to “interpret the object and convey its essence,” as we read in a 1950 issue of Pirelli magazine. Through contributions from scholars like Giulio Carlo Argan and Gillo Dorfles, the journal gave great prominence to the theme of the figurative arts and their complex relationship with photography. The illustrations focused above all on the artistic legacy of Italy. In 1963, Pirelli published a calendar celebrating the most stunning rose windows of churches across the Belpaese, including the facades of San Zeno in Verona and Santa Chiara in Assisi, as seen through Paolo Monti’s lens, creating a visual tribute to Italian architectural heritage in the magazine. Also Pepi Merisio explored the beauty of Italy, from the Renaissance villas in the Lombard countryside to the grand domes of Christendom, including views of the Vatican City. His pictures offer a glimpse into daily life within the papal quarters, as well as parades, state visits, and ceremonies held under the great vaulted ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, and inside St Peter’s Basilica. The final issue in 1967 features a striking cover: an image of breath-taking dynamism showing a maintenance worker at St Peter’s, precariously cleaning Bernini’s Gloria. From the treasures of the past to today’s contemporary trends: in 1970, Giuseppe Pino photographed the wrapping of the monument to King Victor Emmanuel II in Milan, capturing the moment when the polypropylene fabric, fastened by ropes, was draped over the statue. From the terraces of the Duomo, he then caught the final outcome of Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s brief artistic intervention, which lasted only two days but nevertheless caused controversy and even vandalism.
Cameras captured not only artworks but also their creators. As early as 1950, Aligi Sassu appeared on his racing bike in a picture in the magazine. The Corrente artist’s passion for the world of cycling was of fundamental importance in inspiring forms and colours that he described as ripped from “the speed, the wind of the descents, and the acrid dust of provincial roads”—elements that he then used in ceramics and oils, turning his cycling experience into art. A whole generation of painters and sculptors came before the discerning lens of Ugo Mulas, the “artists’ photographer,” who did far more than simply take photos of artworks; he probed their context and creation, engaging with the scene to the extent that he become a part of it. Among his most iconic portraits is that of Lucio Fontana from 1964—first published in the magazine the following year, and again in 1968. However, a version of Fontana’s Concetto spaziale, which was used in an experimental RAI broadcast, had already appeared in the magazine in 1952, during one of his famous Attese performances. In actual fact, the sequence is staged; Fontana chose not to work directly in front of the camera, instead posing with his Stanley knife in hand in front of intact or already-cut canvases. “It is the moment when the cut has not yet begun, and the conceptual vision is already entirely clear”: Mulas’s words reveal an understanding of Fontana’s intellectual approach, the deliberateness of his artistic action, and the profound significance of the suspended moment just before the work begins. Mulas also made important portraits of Henry Moore, including his creation of the 1965 Archer, a sculpture of smooth, curved surfaces, rendered with a rich, rounded fullness in white marble. Mulas captured it all, from the plaster model to the choice of a single block of limestone in Querceta—a near-sacred ritual completed with the help of local artisans—through to shaping the block in his Forte dei Marmi studio. He conveyed the English artist’s creative intensity and physical exertion, as well the way be brought form out of formlessness. Mulas’s lens immortalised many artists: in 1968, he made an intimate photo shoot of Giovanni Pintori in Bocca di Magra; in 1970, he was with Alexander Calder, surrounded by gouaches, playful mobiles, and enormous stabiles; and the following year he captured the “music of lines, of relationships, of solids and voids” that resonated through the works of Fausto Melotti.
Between 1954 and 1972, Mulas also produced a series on the Venice Biennale, photographing a whole era of the international art scene. Notably, the 1962 edition, featuring Giò Pomodoro, Giuseppe Capogrossi, and Alberto Giacometti, appeared in the magazine, with Giacometti’s reaction to winning the Grand Prize for sculpture making the cover. Mulas’s pictures of the Biennales often appeared in a column called “Pretesti e appunti”, penned by the art historian and critic Franco Russoli, who also wrote about the hotly contested 1964 edition. The victory of Robert Rauschenberg—captured by Mulas standing in front of his Studio Painting—marked the decisive consecration of American Pop Art.
Mulas also photographed artists engaging with the innovations of the “Long P.” The sculptor Sante Monachesi, for instance, is seen at the Galleria Astrolabio in Rome, contemplating a piece he made using string and an expanded polyurethane resin known as Levior made by Pirelli-Sapsa. This light, ephemeral and yet monumental sculpture was an evolution of the Dadaist ready-made. Even tyres themselves became works of art. This can be seen in the case of the Cinturato Tractor Agricolo, which was shown at the 1966 Forma e Verità exhibition in Florence. Conceived by the architect Lorenzo Papi, the exhibition aimed to show, through a range of different objects, that art inherently starts out from everyday life. The displays included drawings by Alvar Aalto, the chassis of the Ferrari Dino, and a model of the Pirelli Tower. In 1969, during a series of meetings on art and technology at the Galleria del Naviglio in Milan, a tyre mould was shown in a highly original combination, together with Giacomo Balla’s Giardino Futurista. Here, the object formed part of a new dimension, revealing, as the catalogue points out, the hidden beauty “that can emerge from the formal constraints of a work tool, if only someone can help us see it.”
Also the activities of the Pirelli Cultural Centre are the focus of the photographer’s lens, and its initiatives in the world of the fine arts include conferences, solo exhibitions of works by the company’s employees, artistic tours across Italy’s main cultural centres, and exhibitions curated by the Centre, ranging from the Middle Ages to the present day. Notably, a 1967 exhibition dedicated to Franco Grignani showed him telling visitors about his some of his works in the spaces of the Pirelli Tower—a journey that traced the development of his art from his debut in 1950 to the full maturity of his style. These exhibitions perfectly illustrate the close connection between Pirelli and artists, a bond that has remained unbroken to this day, with some of the world’s leading international artists continuing to work with the company.
“A photograph of a work of art—be it architecture, sculpture, or even painting—is itself a critical presentation of the work. It is always an interpretation,” wrote the art critic Guido Ballo, echoing his brother Aldo’s view that the purpose of photography is to “interpret the object and convey its essence,” as we read in a 1950 issue of Pirelli magazine. Through contributions from scholars like Giulio Carlo Argan and Gillo Dorfles, the journal gave great prominence to the theme of the figurative arts and their complex relationship with photography. The illustrations focused above all on the artistic legacy of Italy. In 1963, Pirelli published a calendar celebrating the most stunning rose windows of churches across the Belpaese, including the facades of San Zeno in Verona and Santa Chiara in Assisi, as seen through Paolo Monti’s lens, creating a visual tribute to Italian architectural heritage in the magazine. Also Pepi Merisio explored the beauty of Italy, from the Renaissance villas in the Lombard countryside to the grand domes of Christendom, including views of the Vatican City. His pictures offer a glimpse into daily life within the papal quarters, as well as parades, state visits, and ceremonies held under the great vaulted ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, and inside St Peter’s Basilica. The final issue in 1967 features a striking cover: an image of breath-taking dynamism showing a maintenance worker at St Peter’s, precariously cleaning Bernini’s Gloria. From the treasures of the past to today’s contemporary trends: in 1970, Giuseppe Pino photographed the wrapping of the monument to King Victor Emmanuel II in Milan, capturing the moment when the polypropylene fabric, fastened by ropes, was draped over the statue. From the terraces of the Duomo, he then caught the final outcome of Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s brief artistic intervention, which lasted only two days but nevertheless caused controversy and even vandalism.
Cameras captured not only artworks but also their creators. As early as 1950, Aligi Sassu appeared on his racing bike in a picture in the magazine. The Corrente artist’s passion for the world of cycling was of fundamental importance in inspiring forms and colours that he described as ripped from “the speed, the wind of the descents, and the acrid dust of provincial roads”—elements that he then used in ceramics and oils, turning his cycling experience into art. A whole generation of painters and sculptors came before the discerning lens of Ugo Mulas, the “artists’ photographer,” who did far more than simply take photos of artworks; he probed their context and creation, engaging with the scene to the extent that he become a part of it. Among his most iconic portraits is that of Lucio Fontana from 1964—first published in the magazine the following year, and again in 1968. However, a version of Fontana’s Concetto spaziale, which was used in an experimental RAI broadcast, had already appeared in the magazine in 1952, during one of his famous Attese performances. In actual fact, the sequence is staged; Fontana chose not to work directly in front of the camera, instead posing with his Stanley knife in hand in front of intact or already-cut canvases. “It is the moment when the cut has not yet begun, and the conceptual vision is already entirely clear”: Mulas’s words reveal an understanding of Fontana’s intellectual approach, the deliberateness of his artistic action, and the profound significance of the suspended moment just before the work begins. Mulas also made important portraits of Henry Moore, including his creation of the 1965 Archer, a sculpture of smooth, curved surfaces, rendered with a rich, rounded fullness in white marble. Mulas captured it all, from the plaster model to the choice of a single block of limestone in Querceta—a near-sacred ritual completed with the help of local artisans—through to shaping the block in his Forte dei Marmi studio. He conveyed the English artist’s creative intensity and physical exertion, as well the way be brought form out of formlessness. Mulas’s lens immortalised many artists: in 1968, he made an intimate photo shoot of Giovanni Pintori in Bocca di Magra; in 1970, he was with Alexander Calder, surrounded by gouaches, playful mobiles, and enormous stabiles; and the following year he captured the “music of lines, of relationships, of solids and voids” that resonated through the works of Fausto Melotti.
Between 1954 and 1972, Mulas also produced a series on the Venice Biennale, photographing a whole era of the international art scene. Notably, the 1962 edition, featuring Giò Pomodoro, Giuseppe Capogrossi, and Alberto Giacometti, appeared in the magazine, with Giacometti’s reaction to winning the Grand Prize for sculpture making the cover. Mulas’s pictures of the Biennales often appeared in a column called “Pretesti e appunti”, penned by the art historian and critic Franco Russoli, who also wrote about the hotly contested 1964 edition. The victory of Robert Rauschenberg—captured by Mulas standing in front of his Studio Painting—marked the decisive consecration of American Pop Art.
Mulas also photographed artists engaging with the innovations of the “Long P.” The sculptor Sante Monachesi, for instance, is seen at the Galleria Astrolabio in Rome, contemplating a piece he made using string and an expanded polyurethane resin known as Levior made by Pirelli-Sapsa. This light, ephemeral and yet monumental sculpture was an evolution of the Dadaist ready-made. Even tyres themselves became works of art. This can be seen in the case of the Cinturato Tractor Agricolo, which was shown at the 1966 Forma e Verità exhibition in Florence. Conceived by the architect Lorenzo Papi, the exhibition aimed to show, through a range of different objects, that art inherently starts out from everyday life. The displays included drawings by Alvar Aalto, the chassis of the Ferrari Dino, and a model of the Pirelli Tower. In 1969, during a series of meetings on art and technology at the Galleria del Naviglio in Milan, a tyre mould was shown in a highly original combination, together with Giacomo Balla’s Giardino Futurista. Here, the object formed part of a new dimension, revealing, as the catalogue points out, the hidden beauty “that can emerge from the formal constraints of a work tool, if only someone can help us see it.”
Also the activities of the Pirelli Cultural Centre are the focus of the photographer’s lens, and its initiatives in the world of the fine arts include conferences, solo exhibitions of works by the company’s employees, artistic tours across Italy’s main cultural centres, and exhibitions curated by the Centre, ranging from the Middle Ages to the present day. Notably, a 1967 exhibition dedicated to Franco Grignani showed him telling visitors about his some of his works in the spaces of the Pirelli Tower—a journey that traced the development of his art from his debut in 1950 to the full maturity of his style. These exhibitions perfectly illustrate the close connection between Pirelli and artists, a bond that has remained unbroken to this day, with some of the world’s leading international artists continuing to work with the company.
