Hugo PRATT

Hugo Pratt © Cong S.A.

Although born in Italy and raised in Venice (which he superbly put into drawing in the 80s), Hugo Pratt is first and foremost a cosmopolitan traveler. From everywhere and from nowhere, he goes where his desires lead him, without any other justification..
It was after the war, in 1945, that he started drawing, under the influence of American Comics that he discovered while he was a prisoner of an internment camp in Ethiopia, with his mother in 1942/1943..
In 1949, he moved to Argentina for about ten years, while continuing to move, to publish (once in Buenos Aires, once in London), to discover new lands, to store new landscapes..
The long silhouette of Corto Maltese was first encountered in 1967 with the publication of the first pages of The Ballad of the Salty Sea. Still a minor character, at that time, he reappeared in 1969, in Pif Gadget, for a few more pages, but it was not until 1974 that the complete album was published and that the mutinous and detached hero of Pratt came to the fore.
Awarded at the 3rd Angoulême Festival, the album opens a formidable series that will make the fortune and glory of its author..
Established in Switzerland in the mid-1980s, Hugo Pratt passed away in 1995, leaving behind a secret hero, with no strings attached and free as air... The perfect alter-ego of its author!