Gino Boccasile: A Great Artist for Pirelli
Thanks to the warmth given off by a Pirelli hot water bottle, an egg hatches, giving birth to a little chick. This was the picture created by the painter Gino Boccasile in 1952 to advertise the Pirelli hot water bottle. This had been one of the first rubber products to be made by the company in the late nineteenth century, and it was portrayed in the 1950s by a number of artists. One example is Raymond Savignac’s campaign in 1953, with a child hugging the hot water bottle, and another is the amusing animation by the Pagot brothers called “Freddo, semifreddo, caldo“. The original sketches for these advertisements, which were made in tempera on paper and signed by the artists, are now in our Historical Archive, together with some of the prints made from them: window displays, window transparencies and price tags used by shops for window dressing. Boccasile died prematurely in 1952, at the age of just 51, at the height of an intense career as a poster designer and illustrator, mainly for satirical newspapers and fashion magazines. In particular, in 1937 and 1938 he designed the covers of a magazine, Le grandi firme, creating a female figure, known as “Signorina Grandi Firme”, which brought him great fame at the time. It was therefore no coincidence that in 1938 Boccasile was commissioned by Pirelli to create an advertisement for clothing, in which his elegant ladies appeared in Pirelli raincoats.
Thanks to the warmth given off by a Pirelli hot water bottle, an egg hatches, giving birth to a little chick. This was the picture created by the painter Gino Boccasile in 1952 to advertise the Pirelli hot water bottle. This had been one of the first rubber products to be made by the company in the late nineteenth century, and it was portrayed in the 1950s by a number of artists. One example is Raymond Savignac’s campaign in 1953, with a child hugging the hot water bottle, and another is the amusing animation by the Pagot brothers called “Freddo, semifreddo, caldo“. The original sketches for these advertisements, which were made in tempera on paper and signed by the artists, are now in our Historical Archive, together with some of the prints made from them: window displays, window transparencies and price tags used by shops for window dressing. Boccasile died prematurely in 1952, at the age of just 51, at the height of an intense career as a poster designer and illustrator, mainly for satirical newspapers and fashion magazines. In particular, in 1937 and 1938 he designed the covers of a magazine, Le grandi firme, creating a female figure, known as “Signorina Grandi Firme”, which brought him great fame at the time. It was therefore no coincidence that in 1938 Boccasile was commissioned by Pirelli to create an advertisement for clothing, in which his elegant ladies appeared in Pirelli raincoats.
