“A pair of seductive, hooded eyes, a barely-there nose, and a pair of luscious cherry red lips that you couldn’t mistake for anyone else’s in the world: that was his Marilyn, and that’s how she became ours.“ Lisa Merlini, journalist
Silvano Campeggi: A Biography
“Those who knew him during cinema’s heyday said he could watch a movie …and in a matter of minutes extract the film’s most crucial, iconic gesture or moment on paper…”
Silvano “Nano” Campeggi was born in Florence in 1923, the son of Astolfo, a printer and typesetter. He grew up immersing himself in the advertising graphics his father set and designed for a living. He attended art school and studied under famed painters Ottone Rosai and Ardengo Soffici and began iillustrating for books and newspapers. The American Red Cross asked him to make sketches of American soldiers before they left Europe to return home, and from them Silvano developed a love of jazz and American rock and roll.
Campeggi moved to Rome after the war, and met Franco Zeffirelli and was introduced to Cinecitta’, the famous cinema studio in Rome. There, Campeggi had a chance to work with the artist Tamburi. He then met Martinati, a poster designer, and thus began his work in the movie poster business.
Posters and press release/fliers were the only means to publicize the movies and Campeggi became a leader in the field. In 1944, he received a letter from one of the largest of the American movie studios, Metro Goldwyn Mayer. And in 1945, the poster for Gone with the Wind was born.
Campeggi became known as the “film-star painter” as he brought American cinema to life for 27 years by creating over 3000 posters for all the major movie studios. He helped make familiar the faces of actors from Gregory Peck, Spencer Tracy, Cary Grant, Humphrey Bogart, Orson Welles, Fred Astaire and Marcello Mastroianni to the actresses Marilyn Monroe, Ava Gardner (his favorite), and Ingrid Bergman, Liz Taylor, Sophia Loren, Brigitte Bardot, Audrey Hepburn and Marlene Dietrich. His images were timeless and captured a moment that still continues to define many films: West Side Story, Singing in the Rain, Casablanca, Gigi, An American in Paris, Madame Bovary, Ben Hur and Little Women, to name just a few.
In the 1970s, television sets took over movie screens and Campeggi left Hollywood and moved back to Florence. He received a commission to paint five large battle scenes from the Italian Risorgimento from the Carabinieri Police Force and one of his portraits became a 1975 postage stamp.
During the summers, Campeggi would travel to the island of Elba, just off the coast of Tuscany, painting nature, primarily the islands rocks and stones. This was a time of artistic exploration for “Nano” and produced the work displayed during the 2007 Syracuse International Film Festival (SIFF) at the Everson Museum in Syracuse.
Since 1988, Campeggi has revisited his film years in a series of retrospective shows organized in locations such as the Palazzo Medici Riccardi in Florence, in Paris and at several French universities, and at Soho’s Circle Gallery in New York City.
In 2002, Campeggi painted a mural in a Florentine cinema and opened a show in Florence: Il cinema ritrovato: omaggio a Charlie Chaplin, Cinema Found: Homage to Charlie Chaplin. The following year, Campeggi became a professor of art and visual design in the University of Florence’s department of architecture and industrial design.
Maestro Campeggi continues to be in demand for commissioned portraits and exhibitions. His large body of work travels throughout Europe and he is frequently honored for his contribution to the arts.
The Syracuse International Film Festival is honored that Maestro Silvano Campeggi has designed the 2007 signature poster and will present “Nano” with a Lifetime Achievement Award on April 22, 2007.
Biography extracts edited by Lisa Merlini and Christine Fawcett
