Born in 1926 in Morciano di Romagna, Arnaldo Pomodoro was one of the defining figures of Italian post-war modernism. Few sculptors explored the tension between external form and inner structure with such persistence. His work enters into dialogue with Constructivism, Arte Povera, Minimal and Conceptual Art – yet it resists being confined to any one of them. His rural origins in Emilia-Romagna, his experience of war and reconstruction, as well as his early training in surveying, all shaped his particular sensitivity to proportion, order and disruption. The act of measuring, of mapping and structuring space defines his art as much as his awareness that every surface conceals a hidden depth. Already in his early jewellery and silver or copper reliefs, this dual movement is visible: lines, scratches and interruptions disturb the unity of form, opening it towards the unknown.

In the mid-1950s Pomodoro moved to Milan, a city brimming with post-war energy and an art scene influenced by Lucio Fontana and the avant-garde. Here he developed his distinctive language: reliefs whose metallic skins are criss-crossed by signs, fissures and fragmentations, as though one could strip away layer after layer without ever reaching an end. Literary and artistic influences such as Kafka, Hemingway and Klee further sharpened his sense for writing, symbols and the ambiguity of signs.

A decisive step followed with his travels to the United States, where he encountered monumental sculpture and the work of Brancusi, Moore and Nevelson. From that point on, Pomodoro conceived his creations less as objects but rather as spaces in which the mechanical, the architectural and the poetic intersect and engage in dialogue. Bronze became his preferred medium, combining strength, lustre and vulnerability. It can be polished to brilliance, yet it also accepts patina, cracks and traces of time.