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Lot description
Fortunato Depero 1892-1960 Futurista. Bolted book. 1927. Condition B+: covers faded, with minor abrasions and wear; slight toning to inside pages; bound with two aluminum industrial bolts. It is neither hand-signed nor numbered. From an edition of 1000. Depero designed this groundbreaking tour-de-force book as a Futurist manifesto, personal propaganda and self-promotional portfolio, which not only highlighted his immense typographic abilities, but also his various artistic enterprises around Italy, including his Casa d'Arte. His close collaboration with Davide Campari, and the brand's financial backing for this project becomes apparent beginning on page 93. F.T. Marinetti referred to it as a "typographical racing car," and indeed, it is a virtuosic graphic masterpiece, often cited as a landmark Art Book. Each page is an innovative, dynamic and distinguished type-set masterpiece. The tome is colloquially and reverentially called "The Bolted Book," as each book is held together with bolts that could be unscrewed, allowing Depero to display pages as advertising for his own portable art gallery. These 'machine parts' align with the Futurists' veneration of modern technology and industrialization. The original binding, with no glue or thread allowed, was invented by the Futurist editor Fedele Azari. The intended printed edition of this original 1927 version was 1000, though it is unclear if that many were actually produced. Rare. Mechanical Age pl. 10, Page Design p. 112, MoMA 202.1997.