The title of this book – 1900. Key artists and works of the 20th century. Vol.3: last decades – says all we needed to spring to our feet and rush to the nearest bookshop, longing to own it.
Mind you: this is not an objective book review. How can it be? We LOVE books AND we have a PASSION for Italian pottery. And this is an excellent, though opinionated (impossible to do differently!), collection of the most interesting works made between the Eighties and the end of the century, thus offering a good perspective on the status of the art and a concise interpretation of its development.
The author, Emauele Gaudenzi, put a lot of energy in his selection, including not only the most important Italian ceramicists and factories, but also some less known artists who significantly contributed to the evolution of our pottery making art. Giacomo Alessi, our friend from Sicily, is among them.
His Vol. 3 counts more than 250 works by 150 artists, some of them very young, all of them adding a piece to the puzzle of Contemporary Art, made of figurative, informal, abstract, conceptual trends, minimalism, ornamental instinct, design, raku and … well, the picture is still evolving and time has to leave its mark on the subject.
Together with the catalogue of the works, made of beautiful and large color pictures, Gaudenzi offers to the reader a critical essay on the evolution of the Art pottery at the end of the 20th century and a section with the artists’ résumé.
This volume is part of a trilogy offering the Italian pottery art critics and collectors an overview of the key trends of the 20th century, that is very important in the history Italian Ceramics because it marks the renewal of pottery art after a long decline.
Many energies have been spent to celebrate the glory of our ceramics during the Renaissance and immediately after. On the contrary very few books are to be found on the more recent productions. We wish to thank Mr Gaudenzi for his ceaseless work on contemporary Italian pottery, which really deserves more attention both nationally and internationally.
Emanuele Gaudenzi lives and works in Faenza. Once an antique dealer, he is a decorative arts consultant for auction firms, museums, foundations and magazines. As a scholar, he is author of many books on modern Italian ceramics, among them Novecento Vol. 1 From Liberty to Déco and Novecento Vol. 2 From Primitivism to Design.