Arnaldo Pomodoro

Catalogued in the Studio Pomodoro archive with the number AP 201. We would like to thank Mrs Laura Berra at Arnaldo Pomodoro Studio, Milano, for the information.

Receipt from Galerie Pierre, Stockholm enclosed. (Correspondence between Arnaldo Pomodoro and Henning Throne-Holst is also preserved).

It has been said that Arnaldo Pomodoro is to sculpture what Lucio Fontana was to painting. Both represent something highly innovative in their respective genres, Fontana treated his paintings like sculptures and Pomodoro, in turn, treated his sculptures like paintings, filled with both memories and visions of the future.

Arnaldo Pomodoro is undoubtedly Italy’s most famous and influential 20th century sculptor. His artistic career began back in the mid-1940s, when he was engaged in restoring buildings in the Italian city of Pesaro, an occupation he pursued until 1957, while dreaming of becoming an architect. But he chose to study stage design instead, and also eventually worked as a goldsmith. These skills are combined in his sculptural oeuvre, giving his works a profoundly unique expression. They have the jeweller’s attention to detail and knowledge of materials, while the monumental format and natural interaction with the surrounding space are suggestive of architecture. Pomodoro himself has said that both sculpture and architecture need to appeal to the viewer in an aesthetic, spiritual and functional way in order to be meaningful. Alongside his profession as a sculptor, Pomodoro has also designed stage sets and costumes for several opera productions. His skills as a set designer are integrated in his sculptural works, especially with regard to their positioning.

In 1954, Pomodoro moved to Milan, where he continues to live and work. That year, he also exhibited jewellery and metal reliefs for the first time, at Galleria Numero in Florence and at Galleria Montenapoleone in Milan, with his brother, Giò. His sculptures were shown for the first time in 1955, at Galleria del Naviglio in Milan. In the late-1950s, Pomodoro travelled around Europe and the USA, including New York and Paris, where he became acquainted with Alberto Giacometti. In the 1960s, Pomodoro’s sculptures grew larger and free-standing. His breakthrough came in 1963, with the biennial in São Paulo, Brazil, where he was awarded the International Sculpture Prize. This was followed by a solo exhibition at the Venice Biennale in 1964, which marked the starting point for a succession of nearly 50 exhibitions to date at biennials around the world. In 1965, he opened his first solo exhibitions at the prestigious Marlborough Gallery in New York and Rome. During the 1960s, he was also a popular teacher at both Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley.

Towards the end of the decade, Pomodoro embarked on projects for monumental outdoor sculptures for Darmstadt, New York, Milan and other locations. These works made him known to a broader general public. His most famous work is “Sphere within a Sphere”, which has been made in several versions and formats. Two of these can be seen at Cortile della Pigna in the Vatican and outside the UN Headquarters in New York. This is a deeply symbolic work that consists of a gigantic globe in polished bronze, a shining, golden sphere reminiscent of planet Earth. The surface of this orb is riddled with deep gaping cracks. A closer look reveals another, smaller orb inside which is on its way out. Pomodoro claims that his works are exceedingly suitable in places where many people pass through, and where the sculptures become a natural part of their everyday lives, movements and thoughts. His sculptures are found in many places, including Amalienborg Gardens in Copenhagen, the churchyard in Urbino, in Belvedere, Florence, and at the Palais-Royal, Paris. In Stockholm, we have his work “Scatola” (inaugurated in 1967) at the crossing of Karlavägen/Sturegatan. Pomodoro is still active at the age of 86, and last year he had three solo exhibitions in different places around the world. He is represented in many of the finest international art collections, including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, the Nelson A. Rockefeller Collection, New York, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice.

Ever since his first public sculptures saw the light of day, Pomodoro has adhered strictly to his own unique style, exploring and working with the basic geometric shapes of the cube, the pyramid and the orb. Pomodoro’s works are cast using traditional methods, in durable materials such as bronze, stainless steel and concrete. Their design and construction is highly complex, and they are usually made in very small editions. His heavy, geometric shapes and massive volumes give the impression of being in perpetual change and different stages of decomposition. The surfaces are partially broken up and pockmarked; they look like something from deep down inside the earth, or perhaps from outer space. It is the contrast between the interior and exterior that make his sculptures so intriguing. The variations in materials and surfaces, smoothness contrasting with rough, processed relief, Where the complex and enigmatic signs symbolise communication between people. They originate in Paul Klee’s prints and drawings, but Pomodoro has also been inspired by ancient dead languages, such as Sumerian scripts and Egyptian hieroglyphics. Using various goldsmith techniques, he has then developed them into three-dimensional ornamentation that he combines with highly-polished surfaces.

The exquisitely beautiful and poetic “Radar No 2” is from 1961 and was acquired in 1968 by the Marabou collection from Galerie Pierre, located on Nybrogatan 1 in Stockholm at the time. It was featured there in a solo exhibition that year, the only solo exhibition Pomodoro has ever had in Sweden, as far as we know. Correspondence between Henning Throne-Holst and Pomodoro reveals that Throne-Holst was very fond of the artist’s jewellery and sculptures and had plans to acquire further works for the collection. The shiny, golden “Radar No 2” was placed in Marabou’s reception, where it welcomed visitors for many years. The convex sculpture resembles a satellite dish aiming its receiver diagonally up at the sky. Its smooth, round shape is interrupted by a raised section with written characters - or is it a miniature model of a city? The roundness against the angularity of the concrete fundament creates a dynamic energy, and its simple shapes serve to contain the more complex and detailed narratives told within its shell. Like the Mima in Harry Martinson’s epic poem Aniara, “Radar No 2” appears capable of picking up fragments of thought in space and showing them as wondrously beautiful images to its fellow travellers. “The Mima tuned us in to signs of life spread far and wide. But where they were the Mima would not say. We pull in traces, pictures, landscapes, scraps of language being spoken someplace, only where? Our faithful Mima does the best she can and searches, searches, searches.”