Pompeo Pianezzola, abstract wall sculpture in silver coated steel, Italy, 1968

The ceramist and designer Pompeo Pianezzola was born in Nove, Vicenza, in 1925 and began his career as a very young ceramist working as an apprentice at the "Antonibon-Barettoni" ceramic factory and studying at the local Art Institute.

Later 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 production, obtaining, starting from the end of the 1940s, the first recognitions both in Italy and abroad.

In 1939 he joined the "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 fifties 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 made both artistic and commercial productions and at the same time collaborated as a designer with the Treviso ceramic manufacturer "Appiani" and "Zanolli & Sebellin" in Nove.

Antonio Lucietti and Ico Parisi collaborate with Pianezzola.

In the 1960s, his works lost the figurative aspect to take 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.

In these same years he created some decorations for dishes inspired by the paintings of Tiepolo and Guardi and produced by the Novese manufacture "Antonibon"

He is 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 the 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 '74, returning to his old love, he participated in the II International Symposium of Ceramics in Nove and in 1978 he took part in the first exhibition "Venetian ceramic sculptors"

For a few years he left ceramics again until 1992 when he took part in the Mulhouse exhibition at the Maison de la Ceramique and presented the solo show "Ceramica, sentimento del Tempo" in Beijing.

Pompeo Pianezzola died in Angarano in 2012