Osvaldo Ballerio: From Fields to Posters—The Land Between Beauty and Insurance

An important part of Generali Group’s heritage lies in its rich tradition of advertising posters dedicated to the main types of agricultural insurance (hail, fire), which began to take shape in the early 1900s through the art of various illustrators such as Achille Beltrame, Gino Boccasile, Marcello Dudovich, and Osvaldo Ballerio—renowned advertising designers who collaborated with Generali or with affiliated companies, such as the Milan-based Anonima Grandine and Anonima Infortuni.

His painting, imbued with a narrative and didactic vein, retraces in the Trittico della canapa (the Hemp Triptych) the stages of agricultural processing, but with the attention and elegance of one of the most important illustrators and graphic artists of the Italian 1920s and 1930s. At the center of the triptych, there is room for an idyll with a nineteenth-century flavor, where farmers exchange a greeting still tinged with romantic charm.

After graduating from the Brera Academy, he soon devoted himself to painting and decorating, leaving numerous works in the churches of Val d’Intelvi. In the Sacramentine Church in Milan, one of his large-scale paintings depicting the apparition of Christ to Blessed Maria Lacoque is on display.

He became known above all as a poster artist and illustrator of cartoons for books and newspapers, both in Italy and abroad.

His career as an advertising graphic designer began in Milan with the publisher Fumagli and the Fraschini lithographic establishment; among his works, some series of political satire cartoons are particularly famous.

Ballerio, following in the footsteps of the great Italian poster artists (Metlicovitz, Hohenstein, Mataloni, Dudovich), produced significant works, collaborating from 1920 onward with the Chappuis Workshops in Bologna.

He created posters and other advertising materials for numerous industries, companies, exhibitions, and fairs.

In the graphic arts field, his advertisements for Pirelli tires, Delser biscuits, numerous bicycle brands (including Cicli Dei of Parma), Erba tamarind, Strega liqueur, the tenth anniversary of the Automobile Club (1908), various insurance companies (such as Anonima Grandine), the Bognanco and Baveno (Verbania) spas, the Salsomaggiore spa, and numerous tourist posters are worth mentioning. He is also remembered for the logo of Excelsior Tomato Extract. He was also the author of numerous military and patriotic postcards published during World War I.