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(2) Giò Pomodoro
(b Morciano di Romagna, nr Pesaro, 17 Nov 1930). Sculptor, jeweller, printmaker and stage designer, brother of (1) Arnaldo Pomodoro. In 1951 he graduated from the Istituto Tecnico per Geometri in Pesaro. While doing military service in 1952–3, he visited the Galleria Numero in Florence, where he became acquainted with action painting, and he began to compose automatic drawings, which were exhibited at the same gallery. In 1954 he moved to Milan, where he associated with leading avant-garde artists and made jewellery with his brother Arnaldo. He began to produce reverse reliefs in clay, which were composed of automatic gestures and signs, and he also formed assemblages of various materials, including wood, textiles and plaster; both kinds of works were then cast in metal. In 1956 he and his brother were invited to exhibit at the Venice Biennale, where he saw Jackson Pollock’s Convergences, and in 1957 he participated in the show Arte Nucleare at the S Fedele Gallery, Milan. In 1958 he created his first Surfaces in Tension, made from stretched fabric fixed to rigid planes with pins. The tension of the textiles was intended to represent an alternative kind of sculptural quality to the three-dimensionality of conventional sculpture and was supposed to integrate the surface of the work with its surrounding space. As well as exhibiting in both group and solo shows, he won prizes at the first Paris Biennial in 1959 and the Venice Biennale in 1962; he also joined the group CONTINUITÀ, founded in 1961. During the 1960s he developed several series of sculptures, in various materials, which explored a range of abstract shapes, usually with smooth undulating surfaces, as in the Crowds series (e.g. Crowd, 1964; Rome, G.N.A. Mod.). In his later career Pomodoro produced a number of large outdoor structures, including Place of Measures (1977–80; Verona, Piazza dei Signori, see 1977–8 exh. cat.). This quasi-architectural sculpture consists of stone blocks, arranged according to arcane mathematical systems derived from the Antique. Pomodoro’s preoccupation with Classical civilization, together with an interest in solar imagery, is also evident in his work of the 1980s (e.g. Hermes Leads the Sun, 1984; Milan, Gal. Stendhal, see 1989 exh. cat., p. 98). His versatility is exemplified by his experimentation with various printmaking techniques, and by his work as a stage designer (e.g. The Magic Flute, 1980; Venice, Teatro della Fenice).
Part of the Pomodoro family
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