PAOLO FEDERICO GARETTO (1903-1991) AMILCAR. 1929.

47x62 1/4 inches. H. Chachoin, Paris.
Condition B+: restored losses in bottom margin; minor restoration in margins; creases in image.
An efficient, humorous and clever piece of advertising in which Garetto employs two established visual conceits to help convey his message. The advertised car has passed out of the frame, leaving only tire tracks and a plume of smoke behind. Yet clearly it was such a car that it caught the eye and the attention of a trendy and handsomely dressed couple, who are standing on the street corner looking after it. For the rest of us, who were too slow to see it, there happens to be a poster within the poster depicting the car (ingeniously posted over other posters, whose corners are visible). Garetto was primarily a political cartoonist who became an international artistic star in the 1920s. By the end of that decade he was traveling so much that he would spend three days a week in Paris and the other four in London. He also received large commissions from American magazines like Vanity Fair, and began spending three or four months every year in the States. Through his travels he met many clients, both in advertising and in show business. Among the media giants for whom he worked in New York were J. Walter Thompson, N.Y. Ayer and McCann Ericsson.