Tito (Ettore)

Paris, , 1927.
one of a series of four proverbs, very much conveying the spirit of the ‘Roaring Twenties’, of art deco elegance and decadence, showing independent young women defying outdated conventions of social behaviour and fashion. Here, the proverb means ‘spoken words may fly away, but writing remains’, depicting a sullen young lady wearing a very stylish long coat, as she stands by a rumpled bed in a smart modern interior, going through the pockets of a gentleman’s jacket.

The Italian artist, Ettore Tito (1859-1941), had already established a successful career in the later 19th century as a landscape and genre painter. He was a member of the Italian Royal Academy, and in the early 20th century had won the Grand Prix for painting at the Panama-Pacific International Exhibition, in San Francisco, in 1915. So, it was a relatively late transition to this more decorative, illustrative style of the French art deco fashion publications, such as ‘La Gazette de Bon Ton’, and ‘Art, Goût, Beauté’..