Athos Casarini futurista (1883-1917)

Athos Casarini (Bologna 1883-1917). Bolognese artists have always been part of the avant garde movements of their times and Casarini was certainly one of them. In 1908 he joined his brother in New York who had gone to America five years earlier to work with the 'Progresso Italo-Americano' newspaper. Athos was a talented draughtsman as well as a humorous and satirical illustrator and worked with the 'Post Dispatch' and the 'New York World'. His brilliant sarcastic attacks on the American privileged classes led Marinetti to call him as the 'Italian Futurist Painter in America'. He was also the first to think of including advertising illustrations in the papers he worked for. He was in regular contact by letter with Mario Pozzati, who was already specialising in advertising posters in Bologna. With the outbreak of the First World War, he returned to Italy to join up a volunteer (he was a sub-lieutenant) and died in the battle on the Carso on September 12th 1917. He was one of the most perspicacious, witty and amusing satirical innovators of his time. We could say that his perfect comprehension of the 20th century made him the father of modern advertising posters.