LOT Old Heritage Auctions  /  2008 May Signature Fine Arts Auction #5004  / 

33139

ARNALDO POMODORO Piccolo Sfera, 1963 Bronze 20 x PROPERTY OF MRS. RUTH CARTER STEVENSON

Currency:USD Category:Art Start Price:120,000.00 USD Estimated At:150,000.00 - 200,000.00 USD
ARNALDO POMODORO Piccolo Sfera, 1963 Bronze 20 x PROPERTY OF MRS. RUTH CARTER STEVENSON
<B><BR>ARNALDO POMODORO (Italian, b. 1926)</B></I><BR><I>Piccolo Sfera</B></I>, 1963<BR>Bronze<BR>20 x 20 x 20 inches (50.8 x 50.8 x 50.8 cm)<BR>Ed. 1/2 <BR>Presented on a black stone base<BR> <BR>PROVENANCE:<BR>Felix Landau Gallery, Los Angeles, California;<BR>Purchased from the above by the current owner in 1963.<BR><BR>In 1963, the year he produced <I>Piccolo Sfera,</B></I> the self-taught Italian sculptor Arnaldo Pomodoro won a major prize at the Sao Paolo Biennial for his highly polished cast bronze spheres whose surfaces he gouges out and scars. The Brazilian award was followed by a top prize at the Venice Biennale a year later, which secured his reputation as an important new talent. <BR><BR>Pomodoro, whose name means "golden apple," or more colloquially, "tomato" in Italian, began his career making jewelry after rigorous training as an architect. He slowly moved into the realm of sculpture, bringing with him a feeling for exquisite detail and craftsmanship, geometry, texture, and the palpable tension present in man's relationship to the technological age. He worked first in more malleable lead and pewter to initiate the idea of his expressionist "boxes." He subsequently moved into the more demanding processes of cast brass and bronze.<BR><BR>For the artist, who lives and works in Milan, the starting point is always solid geometry; the expression of tension begins as he scores, gouges out, and selectively cuts into his spheres, cylinders, cubes and disks. "The contrast between the polished and torn surfaces is precisely the difficulty of the individual to adapt to the new world," he feels. What he finds within these solid geometries evokes a strange and curious crystalline imagery drawn from the machine. As a writer for <I>Time</B></I> noted on December 3, 1965: "His slabs look like the innards of computers, his spheres like ball-shaped printing heads for IBM typewriters. He did a façade for a Cologne school that is 78 feet high by 27 feet wide and entitled <I>Grand Homage to Technological Civilization</B></I>. He calls other slabs <I>Radars</B></I> because they strike him as "capturing feelings."<BR><BR>Rather than being at odds with the machine, Pomodoro searches for harmony between technological society and man. His sculpture probes for a tactile solution that will satisfy both the intellect and the emotions. The complicated crevices and fissures in <I>Piccolo Sfera</B></I> interrupt the polished surface to produce visual and tactile counterpoints. The effect seems to suggest the chasm between machine-age perfection and man's inner doubts.<BR><BR>The present owner purchased <I>Piccolo Sfera</B></I> in 1963, the same year it was made. Like many of Pomodoro's ambitious cast works, <I>Piccolo Sfera</B></I> was produced in an extremely small edition. This is one of two.<BR><BR>Arnaldo Pomodoro is a recipient of the 2008 Lifetime Achievement Award by the International Sculpture Center.

<B>Condition Report:</B> <P>There are surface scratches commensurate with age. They are most numerous on the bottom where the sculpture makes contact with the base, as can be expected. Otherwise the sculpture is in very good condition.</P><P>The dimensions for the base are 6 x 19 x 19 inches.<BR></P><DIV class=dict_inner id=29dict_content_2 style="DISPLAY: none"></DIV><DIV class=dict_inner style="DISPLAY: none"> </DIV><BR><BR><b>Shipping:</b> Requires 3rd Party Shipping (<a target="_blank" href="http://www.heritageauctions.com/common/shipping.php">view shipping information</a>)
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