Two exotic fish

Signed on the fish: ‘G. Cacciapuoti’

Provenance: Paris, private collection

Bibliography: Le ceramiche Cacciapuoti da Napoli a Milano 1870-1953, exhibition catalogue edited by L. Arbace, N. Stringa, G. Anversa, F. Buranelli (Faenza, Palazzo delle Esposizioni, 16 September – 29 October 2000), Florence, Editoriale Olimpia, 2000, p. 85, no. 110 (illustr.).

Coming from a family of ceramists for three generations, Guido Cacciapuoti is the member who most stands out for his sculptural production of animalier vocation. After his Neapolitan apprenticeship at his father’s factory, he carried out his first activity in Treviso, certainly absorbing all the international artistic temperament that was in the air at the Venice Biennials, where he also exhibited in 1920. In particular, it was the observation of sculptors such as Renato Brozzi, Guido Righetti, Felice Tosalli, Sirio Tofanari and Rembrandt Bugatti that helped steer the young Cacciapuoti towards the animalist choice. ‘In everyday life men seek a refuge: I have found it in the silence of animals and I strive to make it an expression,”[1] wrote the artist in the catalogue of the 1915 Exhibition of Art in Treviso, with a firm declaration of intent that would follow throughout his career. Following his move to Milan in the 1920s and with the management of the Grès d’Arte Cacciapuoti company, the artist opened a new chapter in his life. Although he followed the commercial side and the taste of the market, which was directed towards ornaments and porcelain objects such as the small neo-eighteenth-century ladies in polychrome earthenware, he continued his rich animalier production, of ‘countless specimens of a fabulous zoological garden’[2], which represented his true characteristic feature. Among small dogs, turkeys, chickens and other domestic and farmyard animals, exotic species stand out above all others in Cacciapuoti’s variegated gallery, which also includes the two majestic Fishes that stand out for their whimsy and originality, as if they were part of an extravagant Wunderkammer collection. An authentic masterpiece of the artist, the pair of Fish – of which some variants are known from private collections – stands out not only for the bright red colour of the stoneware, but also for its considerable size, if we think that the other works ‘for the most part are trinkets and more than sculptures, miniatures of sculptures’[3]. The decisive naturalism of the composition, in which Cacciapuoti perfectly investigates the anatomy of the two fish flanked by the large shell, is accompanied by clear and fabulous Art Deco references, especially due to the choice of a bright and unusual chromatic solution. Intense red, moreover, is a distinguishing feature of a group of purely exotic animals in his repertoire of the late 1920s and early 1930s, such as some Elephantines, Elephant bookends and other smaller fish and shell specimens . A Pair of Dory fish dates back to 1931, with a lower base and a more glossy ruby-coloured glaze that, unlike the Two Exotic Fish, does not exhibit all the fine, lenticular details of scales, huge fins and gills that should belong to the nature of fighting fish. The work can however be traced back to the same period, the one in which the so-called Cacciapuoti style was definitively outlined, made up of chromatic investigation, plastic confidence, expressive sensitivity and skilfully eccentric compositional solutions, delineated by the unfailing signature engraved on the paste ‘G. Cacciapuoti’, which has aroused so much interest among international collectors.

[1] Mostra d’Arte Trevigiana, exhibition catalogue edited by A. Martini, Treviso, 1915, p. 15.

[2] C. P. [Ciro Poggiali], Guido Cacciapuoti, ‘La Ceramica’, VIII, 10, 1953, p. 34.

[3] Le ceramiche Cacciapuoti da Napoli a Milano 1870-1953, exhibition catalogue edited by L. Arbace, N. Stringa, G. Anversa, F. Buranelli (Faenza, Palazzo delle Esposizioni, 16 September – 29 October 2000), Florence, Editoriale Olimpia, 2000, p. 21.