"ARNALDO POMODORO. UNA VITA" exhibition in Milan

From 29 May to 18 October 2026, Gallerie d'Italia - Milan presents the exhibition “ARNALDO POMODORO. A LIFE”, in collaboration with Fondazione Arnaldo Pomodoro, dedicated to one of the most important figures in Italian and international contemporary art of the second half of the 20^th century.

Curated by Luca Massimo Barbero, associate curator of Intesa Sanpaolo's Collections of Modern and Contemporary Art, and Federico Giani, curator of Fondazione Arnaldo Pomodoro, the exhibition is the story of a life, of an artistic journey that lasted over sixty years, from the ferment of his early career in the mid-1950s to his most recent experiments in the 2000s.  Thanks to an anthology of about forty-five works from the Intesa Sanpaolo and Fondazione Arnaldo Pomodoro Collections, visitors will be able to retrace the most significant stages of Pomodoro’s creative and poetic journey, decade by decade.

The exhibition itinerary will offer visitors the chance to admire the cornerstones of the Artist's oeuvre and to discover lesser-known works and a nucleus of archive materials selected by the curators to inspire new ways of interpreting and viewing his work.  The exhibition layout will also convey the visionary power of Pomodoro’s creative process, offering a reinterpretation of the most effective displays conceived by the artist throughout his career.  The works on display include two monumental works by Pomodoro that are permanently exhibited in the Octagonal Cloister and the Giardino di Alessandro: Disco in forma di rosa del deserto n. 1 (1993-1994) and Sfera grande (1966-1967), the fibreglass version of the first and most important large Sphere created by the artist, an authentic cornerstone of Pomodoro’s oeuvre, which is part of the Luigi and Peppino Agrati Collection.

Under the Patronage of

Arnaldo Pomodoro was born in Montefeltro in 1926 and spent his childhood and education in Pesaro. He moved to Milan in 1954. His works from the 1950s are high-reliefs where a unique and previously unknown sculptural “writing” emerged. In the early 1960s he turned to three-dimensional work and then to large-scale works, creating his characteristic bronze forms—columns, spheres, cubes, pyramids, disks—featuring fissures and internal ruptures.

Memorable retrospective exhibitions established him as one of the most significant artists in the contemporary scene. He held numerous exhibitions in Europe, Asia, America, Australia, and Japan, and received many honors and awards, including: the Sculpture Prizes at the Biennials of São Paulo in 1963 and Venice in 1964, the International Prize of the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh in 1967, the Praemium Imperiale in Tokyo in 1990, and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Sculpture Center in 2008. In 1992 he received a degree in the humanities honoris causa from Trinity College Dublin and in 2001 an honorary degree in architectural engineering from the University of Ancona.

He taught at American universities, including Stanford, Berkeley, and Mills College. He also worked in set design, creating “spectacular machines” for major Italian theatrical productions.

His works are installed in urban spaces in Italy and abroad (Milan, Copenhagen, Brisbane, Dublin, Los Angeles, Darmstadt, Rome…) and are held in major public collections worldwide, including the Cortile della Pigna of the Vatican Museums, the United Nations Plaza in New York, and UNESCO headquarters in Paris.

On June 22, 2025, just hours before his ninety-ninth birthday, Arnaldo Pomodoro passed away peacefully in his home in Milan, leaving an immense legacy—not only for the power of his work, internationally recognized, but also for the coherence and the depth of his thought, capable of looking to the future with tireless creative energy.

Video by Francesco Mazzei