Luciano Achille Mauzan
Artwork: Maccheroni Pianigiani, 1922
Luciano Achille Mauzan (1883–1952) was born on the French Riviera and moved to Italy in 1905, where he became one of the most prolific poster artists of his generation. Across his career he designed more than 2,000 posters, along with over a thousand postcards, selling everything from bonbons and champagne to dried pasta.
His 1922 poster for Maccheroni Pianigiani shows his signature in full: brilliant, unmodulated color, a single comic figure caught at the very top of a leap, and a composition stripped of everything that does not serve the joke. The figure is Pulcinella, the hook-nosed mask of the commedia dell'arte and the personification of Naples, hoisting an impossible forkful of the city's emblematic food.
The works
Read the story: Maccheroni and Modernism: Achille Mauzan's Playful 1922 Pianigiani Pasta Poster