Sepo, the light bulb poster designer

by Lorenzo Bazzocchi

A great, a giant, of world advertising poster design was without doubt Severo Pozzati (aka Sepo), born in Comacchio in 1895. A painter and sculptor, he exhibited his works alongside artists of the calibre of Morandi, Carrà and Boccioni, having studied Cézanne, Derain and Italian painting from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.

As time passed he succeeded in translating these experiences into the advertising world where, working on it full time, he developed a new and revolutionary style which he matured in three different agencies, Maga in Bologna, Publivox in Geneva and Dorland in Paris.

His posters reveal major focus on the techniques of reproduction, which is why, for the purposes of reducing costs, an essential premise for this type of art, minimalist palettes and flat shades predominate, which make printing easier.

Extraordinary among the many works produced are some posters from 1939 whose subject is the theme of light and the electric light bulb in particular.

One of these, created for the company Osram, shows a light bulb with bayonet fitting, i.e. with a system developed by the Briton Joseph Swann which allows, or rather allowed, its stable and accurate attachment (this model of light bulb was used for many years above all in France and Great Britain).

The second draft is also exemplary, where a single light bulb illuminates the entire building through superimposition (note all the windows lit up in white). This is definitely one of the finest posters in the history of lighting advertising.