Arnaldo Pomodoro, an artist of international acclaim, is widely regarded as Italy’s greatest post-war avant-garde sculptor. In creating his iconic reliefs Pomodoro was heavily influenced by Constantin Brancusi, the“patriarch of modern sculpture”, adapting his clean, smooth sculptures and "reverting them" to a previous, almost “archaic state”.
Pomodoro is a globally recognized sculptor with important solo exhibitions in New York, Japan, France, Brazil, Germany, among others. He has won such prestigious awards as the Carnegie Institute International prize in 1967 and the Henry Moore Grand Prize in Japan in 1981. Along with being one of the twentieth century’s most important sculptors, Pomodoro is also renowned for his stage designs, teaching in numerous universities and being the founder of the Continuità Group in Italy in 1961-62.
Many collectors of American abstract works will often include a sculpture by Arnaldo Pomodoro. Although he was born in Italy, Pomodoro later was a professor at the University of California and artist in residence at Stanford University. Rilievo is the Italian word for relief, a word that in and of itself is a sculptural term for the projection of figures or forms from a background. In a way Pomodoro has created a “double sculpture”. Modern sculptors such as Pomodoro found a way to take an ancient art form such as a “relief” from an earlier time and translate it into a form of abstraction that lures us in. Pomodoro, like Henry Moore or Louise Nevelson, has an unmistakable language in sculpture and stands as one of our most prominent twentieth century sculptors.
Gallerie Orler, Venice
Private Collection, Greece, acquired directly from the above
Monte-Carlo, Galerie Marlborough Monaco, Arnaldo Pomodoro. Sculptures 1990-2000, 2001
Flaminio Gualdoni, Arnaldo Pomodoro: Catalogo Ragionato della Scultura, vol. II, Milan 2007, p. 751, no. 1007, another example illustrated in black and white