06 Sep Digressions of a Contemporary Humanist

Painter, sculptor, engraver, ceramist and draftsman, Gaetano Pompa was an unmistakable and extraordinary artist. As meticulous as a craftsman, as courageous as a genius. He experimented with many materials used, from poor ones, such as clay, to precious ones, such as gold, used in profusion “as a color and as a symbol”.

If on the one hand his art is inspired by the classical world of antiquity, studied with great passion, given his interest in myth and archeology, on the other he is attracted by modernity. His is a surrealism full of “body”, where history borders on invention. His world is populated by characters, animals, landscapes – drawn, painted, cast in bronze – which always have something real and fantastic; they are extravagant ironies and distortions, which Pompa defines “Mutmassungen” (a term of Germanic origin which means conjectures). Today his works are in major museums in the world, from the MoMA in New York to the Art Gallery of Toronto in Canada, from the Kunst Museum in Dusseldorf to the John Herron Art Museum in Indianapolis, from the Vatican Museums to the Museum of Modern Art in Genoa.