Marcello Nizzoli Biography - Infos for Sellers and Buyers

Marcello Nizzoli

Boretto 1887 - Camogli 1969

Born in Boretto in 1887, the Italian designer Marcello Nizzoli attended the Scuola die Belle Arti in Parma from 1910 to 1913. As a painter, Marcello Nizzoli was committed to Futurism. In 1918 Marcello Nizzoli opened a studio in Milan and designed silk scarves featuring patterns in the Art déco style, which he showed at the Monza Biennale in 1923 and in Paris in 1925. In addition, Marcello Nizzoli designed posters for Campari, Maga, and OM as a graphic designer in the 1920s.
Marcello Nizzoli also worked for Olivetti as a graphic designer from the 1930s. Olivetti established an advertizing division in 1932 and strove to create a uniform corporate image accompanied by a characteristically functional approach to product design. With their products and consistent advertizing by means of striking posters and other customized advertizing materials, Olivetti was soon successful worldwide. In 1936 Marcello Nizzoli became head product-design consultant for Olivetti. Marcellos Nizzoli's designs for a great many Olivetti typewriters and calculating machines are especially important, including the "Summa" (1940), "Divisumma 14" (1947), "Elettrosumma Duplex" (1954), "Audit 202" (1955), and "Tetraktys" (1956) calculators and the "Lexicon 80" (1948), "Lettery 22", "Lexikon 80 electric" (both 1950), and "Diaspron 82" (1959) typewriters.
Typical of Marcello Nizzoli's product design is an organic, sculptural form combined with functional machine construction optimized for industrial mass production. Marcello Nizzoli also worked for Olivetti as an architect, designing living quarters for employees from 1948 and, in the 1960s, office buildings. For Necchi, another Italian firm, Marcello Nizzoli designed handsome-looking, functional sewing machines, including the "Mirella" (1957) and the "Supernova Julia" (1961).