‘La tipografia ai non-tipografi’: Guido Modiano e il linguaggio grafico in Italia tra tipografia e arte astratta

Guido Modiano, a typographer and designer active in Milan between the 1920s and 1930s, played a significant role in the development of Italian graphic language through the contamination between typography and abstract art. A printer by training, Modiano revealed from a young age a curious and eclectic personality, fuelled by friendship and collaboration with Edoardo Persico in the editorial office of «Casabella», where he experimented with graphic solutions determined not only by practical needs but also by aesthetic and theoretical reasons, choises e reiterated throughout the 1930s in numerous contributions published in major industry journals (from «Campo Grafico» to «Graphicus», from «Il risorgimento Grafico» to «L’industria della stampa»). From his earliest writings, dated 1929, Modiano argued the positive contribution of abstract art and rationalist architecture in the evolution of Italian graphic-advertising language, later realized in the publication of «tipografia», a magazine edited on behalf of the reggiani Foundry, as well as in numerous editorial products created over the decade. the culmination of his relentless effort in promoting the modernism in Italian typography was his curatorship of the Graphic Art Exhibition at the 7th triennale of Milan and the lengthy debate, Dieci anni di polemica modernista, published in installments in «L’industria della stampa» between 1941 and 1942.