Polychrome majolica tile by Gaetano Pompa

Per non essere schiavi martirizzati dal Tempo, ubriacatevi, ubriacatevi sempre! Di vino, di poesia o di virtù, come vi pare.”

Charles Baudelaire, Lo spleen di Parigi, 1855 – 1864

When a small object, created to cover a wall, a piece of furniture or a floor, becomes itself a cult object, there is probably a genius behind it.

In this case we are talking about Gaetano Pompa, painter, sculptor, engraver, majolica master, defined as a “contemporary humanist”.

Born in Lucania in 1933, he lived in Rome, in Monaco (where he met his wife), then in Orbetello (where he died).

His creative eclecticism, which mixes past and present with a visionary faculty that enchants, is substantiated by the Lucanian culture, combined with the classicism of the city of Rome and the epic vigor of the German world.

His landscapes are airy and full of remoteness. His ambiguous and sometimes paradoxical figures never appear defined, they live between fantasy and reality, they are extravagant constructions, ironies and deformations, which Pompa defines “Mutmassungen” or conjectures.

In this fantastic world, which he gave us with the innocence of a child, we rediscover the taste for the dreamlike and the surreal, which make his creations extremely innovative and modern. As Carlo Levi would say, the “future has an ancient heart”.

Product details
Designer: Gaetano Pompa, 1991, signed and dated
Dimensions: 33 x 33cm
Availability: Not Available