Your Christmas Travel Guide to Italian Pottery Events: Deruta

Iridescenze – Lusterware in the 20th century
Until December 31, 2009

Italian Ceramics - Deruta: Lusterware in the 20th century - Photo Credits: http://www.derutamagiadiunarte.itThe exhibition features luster pottery by Alpinolo Magnini, Ubaldo Grazia, Edgardo Abbozzo and their followers, some of them still active in Deruta.

Together with Angelo Micheletti and Francesco Briganti, Alpinolo Magnini was the artist who made the revival of ceramic art in Deruta possible and encouraged its first steps into modern age.
A skilled painter and an excellent ceramicist himself, he actively supported the work of his fellow artists and contributed to the education of a new generation of pottery makers as the first Director of the newly founded Museum of Ceramics and also as Director of the School of Ceramics.

Ubaldo Grazia adopted a different approach to the relaunch of Deruta pottery. He looked for inspiration at the Renaissance pottery that had made Deruta so famous in the 15th and 16th century and started from there. In 1921 he founded his own pottery factory, still one of the most important in town.

Continue reading

Ugo La Pietra Art Ceramics in Castellamonte

March 7 – 30, 2009
Castellamonte – Italy

Italian Ceramics - Interno and Esterno (Inside and Outside) by Ugo La Pietra - Photo credits: Arte.go

“Terre e Territori” (Clays and Territories) promises to be an extremely interesting and rich exhibition, gathering more than 200 ceramic works signed by a man (and an artist, a designer, an architect, a great teacher, a journalist, a film director …) who stands out for his contribution to Italian Modern Art.

Since the 60’s he has been exploring the relationship between human beings and their environment and how it affects the evolution of the objects they use, the habits they develop, their perceptions of the space surrounding them, their communication.

Fascinated by visual media, be it new technology or traditional handcraftsmanship, La Pietra has used many of them to carry on his researches on everyday objects, to him useful functional tools, but also symbols of a specific decorative culture.

Pottery making has been part of his artistic evolution since the 80’s, when he started to work on the idea of a positive interaction between industrial design and the rich imagery of Italian ceramic craftsmanship. With very interesting results, indeed.

Continue reading