The wedding invitation in 1922 with him as Pierrot and her as an oriental dancer holding a big heart has a double signature: «Edina Altara and Ninon Accornero spouses». It would have been a turbulent partnership of love, art and envy, as befits romantic couples of the genre, but also a declaration of poetics, because that between the Sardinian artist and the noble Piedmontese illustrator Vittorio was a prolific union, which he saw them as successful protagonists with their illustrations first in children’s publishing (they intertwined their destinies on the pages of the «Giornalino della Domenica») and then on the international scene, with their breathtaking interpretations in the Art Deco era.
Man of Nuoro
All “passing from one form to another in the world of applied arts”, as explained by Luca Scarlini, brilliant curator of the exhibition with the aptly Visconti title Vittorio Accornero-Edina Altara, family group with images, at the Man of Nuoro. An exhibition, it must be said immediately, refined as befits the fairytale life of these two artists, protagonists of the social life of the time and magically “suspended between Sardinia, Piedmont and the world“, who managed to reinvent themselves even after the war.
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Gio Ponti
If by the more creative Edina the Gesus Salvadelu of 1916 from the Quirinale collections and above all the famous oils on back-painted mirrors that Gio Ponti liked so much, so that he wanted them for the most elegant rooms of the sumptuous transatlantic liners of the time (the Still Life with Scales from the Conte Biancamano ship is in the permanent collections of Man, The wedding of Bacchus and Ariadne coming from Andrea Doria instead belongs to Edina’s nephew and generous collector prince of the two artists, Federico Spano), from Accornero, in addition to the dreamy and amazing fairy-tale illustrations and those for fashion, the colored prints stencil with views and Venetian masks, oils on cardboard Still life from 1960, not to mention the famous scarves and dresses designed by him for the Gucci house, which delighted Princess Grace of Monaco, and which occupy the first room of this philologically jewel exhibition. And yet to counter the collages of Edina and her portraits of Sardinian women are the Venetian views of her companion, which Dino Buzzati liked so much that he wrote about them with enthusiasm on the pages of the “Domenica del Corriere” and the many sketches from his installations. for the Teatro alla Scala. Lastly, in the garden of delights that is this exhibition, we note the dense catalog published by Silvana Editoriale.
Vittorio Accornero-Edina Altara, family group with images
Nuoro, Man, until 23 January 2022
