Leonetto CAPPIELLO (1875-1942) Self-portrait at 60 Oil on paper. Studio stamp lower right. 106 x 80 cm As well-documented as his work as a caricaturist and poster artist is, there is a lack of art-historical work on his career as a portraitist. Yet his career as a portraitist is not insignificant! From 1905 to the early 20s, he portrayed numerous celebrities from the world of arts and letters: his portrait of Henri de Régnier, dated 1910 and preserved at the Musée d'Orsay, is the only easily accessible testimony to this. Then, probably too busy with his many other activities, he painted only his family: the portrait of his wife Suzanne and their two children (now in the Livorno museum). In 1928, the Uffizi Museum in Florence commissioned a self-portrait for its artists' gallery*. As much as his commissioned portraits are of academic realism, still claiming a "photographic" precision, our portrait, dating (according to the family) from his 60th birthday, is a total departure - it's a resolutely "modern" portrait of a chic, sporty man, against a background worked in light blue tones, a canvas painted in free, generous strokes where Cappiello doesn't forget the freedom given him by poster design: his scarf unfurls without the slightest concern for realism - but with great elegance! * n° 349 from the Grand Palais exhibition in Paris, 1981.