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the spirit of the ‘Roaring Twenties’, of art deco elegance and decadence, showing independent young women defying outdated conventions of social behaviour and fashion.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, shortened from the French ‘Qui embrasse trop, mal étreint’ means ‘who embraces too much hugs badly’, depicting an elegantly dressed couple locked in a passionate embrace, their faces almost fused in their contorted union on a low seat in front of open French windows.

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’..