Pompeo Pianezzola Biography
The ceramist and designer Pompeo Pianezzola was born in Nove, in the province of Vicenza, in 1925 and began his career as a ceramist at a very young age, working as an apprentice at the "Antonibon-Barettoni" ceramic factory and studying at the local G. Fabris Art Institute as a student by Andrea Parini and Giovanni Petucco. Subsequently he attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice. Since the early years of his activity he has been concerned with combining the quality of his work with the need for industrial mass production, obtaining, starting from the end of the 1940s, the first recognitions both in Italy and abroad, recognitions which were widely recognized in the following decade . In 1939 he joined "Antonibon Barettoni" with the qualification of decorator. He taught at the Art Institute of Nove from 1945 to 1977, assuming its direction in the years 1963-1968. In 1949 he was given the opportunity to open his own painting studio at "Barettoni". In the 1950s he met the artistic world and participated with important painters in painting and ceramic exhibitions in Italy and abroad. In 1953 he was invited by the Artists of Figurative Arts association to the XXIII Art Exhibition at the Basilica Palladiana in Vicenza. In 1957 he opened his own factory, in via Molini 77 in Nove, where he created both artistic and commercial productions and at the same time collaborated as a designer with the Treviso ceramic factory "Appiani" and "Zanolli & Sebellin" of Nove. Antonio Lucietti and Ico Parisi collaborate with Pianezzola. In the 1950s he was first in several editions of the Vicenza Competition. In the 1960s his works lost their figurative aspect and took on an increasingly informal tone. In 1962 he ranked first in the Gualdo Tadino competition and in 1963 he won the Faenza Prize, with a large gold on black shield, ex aequo with Fulvio Ravaioli, Leoncillo Leonardi and the Belgian Rogier van De Weghe. In these same years he created some decorations for plates inspired by the paintings of Tiepolo and Guardi and produced by the Novese factory "Antonibon". He was first at the Saie in Bologna in the 1968 and 1970 editions and at the International Ceramics in Nagoya, Japan, in 1974. In 1963, after winning the Faenza Prize, he retired from actual production activity and was appointed director of the Art Institute of Nove. In these years he abandoned ceramics to create sculptures in plexiglass, metal and glass but in 1974, returning to his old love, he took part in the 2nd International Ceramics Symposium in Nove and in 1978 he took part in the first exhibition "Venetian ceramist sculptors". years he left ceramics again until 1992 when he participated in the Mulhouse exhibition at the Maison de la Ceramique and presented his solo show "Ceramics, feeling of Time" in Beijing. Pompeo Pianezzola died in Angarano in 2012.
