ARNALDO POMODORO
(Morciano di Romagna, 1926 - Milano, 2025)

Rhomboid gold brooch by Arnaldo Pomodoro

18k yellow gold. A significant example of sculptural goldsmithing by Arnaldo Pomodoro (1926–2025). This is the ‘Romboide’ (or Rhomboide) brooch, a piece that faithfully reflects the visual language of his famous monumental sculptures, such as the spheres and discs found in many squares around the world.

Crafted using the technique of casting on cuttlebone, the brooch features Pomodoro’s characteristic contrast between smooth surfaces and densely worked interior areas with geometric engravings, ‘marks’ and complex patterns reminiscent of gears or ancient scripts. Signed ‘A. POMODORO’.

Produced by Stefano Johnson, one of the most prestigious and oldest artistic workshops and medal foundries in Milan.

Hallmarked “750 - 121 MI”. Dimensions (front): 4.5 x 4.3 cm. Weight: 27.9 g.

Literature:
Arnaldo Pomodoro (Morciano di Romagna, 1926 – Milan, 2025)

A leading figure in postwar Italian sculpture, Arnaldo Pomodoro initially trained as a surveyor before turning, in the 1950s, to sculpture and material experimentation. After moving to Milan, he engaged with major artistic circles and developed an autonomous visual language, characterized by the use of bronze and by a formal investigation combining polished surfaces with complex internal structures, often revealed through fissures and openings.

Renowned for his iconic Spheres—including Sphere within Sphere (1960–1990)—Pomodoro explored the relationship between perfect geometric form and internal tension, creating works of strong monumental impact placed in public and museum contexts worldwide.

Alongside his sculptural production, Pomodoro pursued, from the 1950s onward, an intense activity in the field of artist’s jewelry, producing unique pieces or works in extremely limited editions. In particular, during the 1960s he developed a series of abstract gold brooches and ornaments characterized by complex structural compositions, which may be described as true “micro-architectures.” These works—often referred to in critical literature as structural abstract brooches—feature incised surfaces, modular grids, and layered constructions that translate, on a reduced scale, the same spatial tensions found in his larger sculptures.

The attribution of these jewels to the 1963–1967 period is supported by precise stylistic elements: the full maturation of his sign-based language, the architectural organization of space through serial modules, and the interplay between compact surfaces and “excavated” areas, directly anticipating the vocabulary of his later monumental works. In this phase, jewelry becomes for Pomodoro a true experimental laboratory in which the formal matrices of his sculptural language are defined.

His oeuvre, which also includes reliefs, stage designs, and graphic works, is distinguished by a rigorous balance between abstraction and symbolic suggestion, making a decisive contribution to the renewal of contemporary sculpture.