“Arnaldo Pomodoro. A Life” opens at Gallerie d’Italia-Milan

Arnaldo Pomodoro was born in Montefeltro in 1926 and spent his childhood and formative years in Pesaro. From 1954 onwards, he lived and worked in Milan. His works from the 1950s are high-reliefs featuring a highly distinctive “writing” unprecedented in sculpture, interpreted in various ways by leading critics. In the early 1960s, he turned to three-dimensionality and developed his research into the forms of solid geometry: spheres, discs, pyramids, cones, columns and cubes – in polished bronze – are split open, corroded and excavated within, with the intention of breaking their perfection and revealing the mystery they contain. The formal contrast between the smooth perfection of the geometric form and the chaotic complexity of the interior would thereafter remain a constant in Pomodoro’s work.

In 1966, he was commissioned to create a sphere measuring three and a half metres in diameter for Expo Montreal, now located in Rome in front of the Farnesina building: this marked his transition to monumental scale. It was the first of many works by the artist to be installed in public spaces of great symbolic significance: in the squares of numerous cities (Milan, Copenhagen, Brisbane, Los Angeles, Darmstadt), in front of Trinity College Dublin, at Mills College in California, in the Cortile della Pigna of the Vatican Museums, outside the United Nations headquarters in New York, at UNESCO’s Paris headquarters, and in the sculpture parks of Pepsi Cola in Purchase and Storm King Art Center in Mountainville, near New York City.

He created numerous environmental works, ranging from the Project for the Cemetery of Urbino (1973), carved into the hillside of Urbino but never realised due to local disputes and issues, to Moto terreno solare, the long concrete mural created for the Minoa Symposium in Marsala; from the Sala d’Armi for the Poldi Pezzoli Museum in Milan to the environmental work Ingresso nel labirinto, dedicated to the Epic of Gilgamesh, and finally Carapace, the winery in Bevagna created for the Lunelli family.

Major retrospective exhibitions established him as one of the most significant artists on the contemporary scene. Numerous travelling exhibitions have taken place throughout Europe, the United States, Australia and Japan. Pomodoro devoted himself to stage design from the beginning of his career, creating “spectacular machines” for numerous theatrical productions, ranging from Greek tragedy to opera, contemporary theatre and music. He also taught in the art departments of American universities, including Stanford University, the University of California, Berkeley, and Mills College.

He received many awards and important recognitions, including Sculpture Prizes at the São Paulo Biennale (1963) and the Venice Biennale (1964); the Praemium Imperiale for Sculpture awarded by the Japan Art Association in 1990; and the Lifetime Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Award from the International Sculpture Center in San Francisco in 2008. In 1992, Trinity College Dublin awarded him an honorary degree in Literature, followed in 2001 by an honorary degree in Building Engineering and Architecture from the University of Ancona.

On 22 June 2025, just hours before his ninety-ninth birthday, Arnaldo Pomodoro passed away peacefully in his home in Milan, leaving behind an immense legacy, not only for the strength of his internationally acclaimed work, but also for the coherence and intensity of his thought, always capable of looking towards the future with tireless creative energy.