Edina Altara

Edina Altara (9 July 1898 – 11 April 1983) was an Italian illustrator, decorative artist, painter and designer. A self-taught artist, she worked in collage, book and magazine illustration, advertising graphics, fashion, ceramic decoration, reverse painting on glass and interior design. Active in Sardinia, Piedmont and Milan, she collaborated at different stages of her career with the illustrator Vittorio Accornero de Testa and the architect and designer Gio Ponti.

Early life and education

Altara was born and raised in Sassari, the third of four sisters: Aurora, Lavinia, Edina and Iride. Her father, Eugenio Altara, was an ophthalmologist originally from Bitti, while her mother, Gavina Campus, came from a wealthy family in Pattada. Following her parents' separation, Altara grew up in a predominantly female household. She attended only elementary school and received no formal artistic training.

Her toys, which are now known mainly through period photographs, included children, animals, musicians, women at wells and other figures assembled as small movable stage sets. Her work was discussed by critics including Vittorio Pica, Raffaello Giolli and Margherita Sarfatti. The sculptor Leonardo Bistolfi also expressed his appreciation of her work.

Paola Lombroso and the rural libraries

In 1917 Altara began working with Paola Lombroso Carrara, known by the pen name Zia Mariù, who promoted small rural libraries for children. For Lombroso's fundraising initiatives, Altara produced postcards, calendars, cut-out figures and other illustrated material. Lombroso affectionately nicknamed her Edina Forbicicchia, referring to her skill with scissors and paper.

At the Sardinian art exhibition held in Cagliari in 1921, Altara was given a room of her own, where she exhibited collages, toys and decorative works. She was also a member of both the executive committee and the jury, and was the only woman serving on bodies otherwise composed of male artists and intellectuals.

One of the principal results of Altara's collaboration with Ponti was her contribution to Casa Lucano in Milan, presented in Domus in 1952 as a casa di fantasia, or "house of fantasy".

Altara produced painted glass doors representing Athena and Bacchus, chests of drawers decorated with episodes from the Odyssey, and painted overdoors. Her compositions brought figures from classical mythology into the domestic interior, combining narrative, decoration and perspectival illusion.

Ponti devoted an article to Altara in issue 270 of Domus, published in May 1952, emphasising her ability to transform surfaces and furnishings into figurative narratives.

During the 1960s she returned to collage, using cuttings from fashion plates, 19th-century prints and devotional images to construct interiors crowded with furniture, curtains, pictures and small figures.

Works in public collections

Works by Altara held in public collections include:

Nella terra degli intrepidi sardi – Gesus salvadelu (1916), a coloured-paper collage in the collections of the Quirinal Palace;