Guido Gambone was born in Montella di Avellino on June 27, 1909 to a middle-class family that moved to Salerno when he was still very young. After graduating from high school, he approached the world of art and ceramics with passion. Starting from the second half of the 1920s, he attended the workshop of Zì Domenico in Vietri sul Mare to specialize in painting on ceramics.
In 1928, Don Ciccio Avallone hired him as an apprentice, but his talent soon led him to become a painter and, eventually, head painter. Dario Poppi, who met him in 1928, was his neighbor at the banquet and workmate as well as a great admirer of his decorative ceramic technique. He described his painting as rapid and full of character, fresh and agile in the realization of the most disparate subjects.
In 1930, some of his works were presented at the Monza Triennale and, in 1933, at the Milan Triennale. His work at Avallone was characterized by the strong influence of the style of the German artists who arrived in Vietri in the second half of the 1920s, a fact that did not prevent him from also creating models linked to the Vietri and classical traditions. In 1933, he suffered the amputation of a leg due to a serious car accident, and this unfortunate event profoundly changed his character. In the same year, an encounter with Irene Kowaliska, with whom he forged a very strong bond of friendship and esteem for the cultural and artistic interests that united them, was fundamental to the development of his unmistakable style.
In 1935, Max Melamerson hired Gambone as an artistic director of his C.I.S. factory’s ceramic production, which had long followed patterns that had become old and repetitive. In 1937, he was transferred to Florence with Francesco Solimene and Vincenzo Procida to revive the fortunes of Ceramiche Artistiche Cantagalli, at the time subsidiary of C.I.S. Here, he made a production in the Vietri style, very much along the decorative lines of Gio’ Ponti and the rarefied and metaphysical painting of Campigli.
In 1940, he returned to Vietri sul Mare to the Melamerson factory, which, in the meantime, had changed its name to M.A.C.S. for racial reasons. Immediately after the end of the Second World War, Guido Gambone, with his brother Remigio and Andrea D’Arienzo, founded a new ceramic factory, “La Faenzarella,” which means, “Small Furnace.” Here, Gambone’s fortune began as an entrepreneur and ceramist of confirmed fame. In 1947, he received a special report at the Faenza Ceramics Competition with a panel entitled
“La Repubblica Italiana del Lavoro,” a splendid work featured in the M.I.C.
The following year, he won the Faenza prize with an amazing cup of abstract ornaments in brown and yellow on white, which is also preserved in the museum’s collection.
In 1949, he won the Premio Faenza once again with a jug in the shape of a reclining woman entitled “La Faenzerella.”
The fortune of this factory lasted until the first months of 1950, when Gambone decided to move permanently to Florence, where he founded with Andrea d’Arienzo the factory called “La Tirrena,” whose pieces were signed with the graphic symbol of a stylized boat. The company broke down after a few months due to character contrasts that became irreconcilable. Thus, Gambone began his successful adventure as an independent entrepreneur. By now, his style had matured also in thanks to encounters with artists of caliber, such as Afro, Fontana, Birolli, Cassinari, and Rosai, who had enriched his cultural and decorative knowledge. Gambone was always ready to capture sparks of inspiration and stylistic innovation in every trend of contemporary art, which he reinterpreted in the decoration of his ceramics with very high-quality results. From the beginning of the second half of the 1950s, he experimented with the stoneware technique, creating surprising vases for modernity and purity of form. He simultaneously continued his production, increasingly inspired by that world of painting to which he had always dreamed of belonging. He regretted being a ceramist, even though he was considered one of the greatest of his time, and not a painter. His works were exhibited in important art galleries, such as the Milione in Milan and the Galleria Totti in Turin, which shows just how close the world of Art and Decorative Arts were in this case.
In 1959, he won the Premio Faenza again, this time with a graffito vase in brown tones. He also won the Premio Faenza the following year with an abstract sculpture in brownish yellow and greyish black enamel. He participated in countless exhibitions in Italy and abroad, for which he received great success and recognition from critics and the public.
He died in Florence on September 20, 1969.
Following is an excerpt from the tribute written by Polish ceramicist Irene Kowaliska, who moved to Vietri in the 1930s, in celebration of the ceramic work of Guido Gambone on the occasion of the exhibition held at the M.I.C. of Faenza on October 4, 1970:
It must have happened during the first years I was in Italy, in Vietri sul Mare, probably in 1934, I don’t remember well. I didn’t have my furnace yet, but I worked in the Pinto ceramics factory. One day I missed a color, maybe yellow, maybe blue. I went to borrow a little from the nearest Avallone factory. They didn’t usually work that much there. Thus, I passed through some rooms full of shelves with cooked and not-yet-cooked containers. There was confusion and abandonment. There seemed to be no one there. Finally, arrived in a last room, semi-dark, like a closet. But there was a man. He was sitting in front of the iron ‘tornietta,’ right in the middle of all this sadness, and he was painting a vase. I asked for the color. He turned to show me a young and proud face of a pale brown color, marked by suffering. It was a face with very southern features, with large dark eyes full of sadness, but at the same time revealed a hidden fire. I immediately felt attracted. My interest grew stronger when I saw his work on the lathe. It was a vase of common shape. But looking at the decoration, I immediately understood that this was not a usual Vietri painter–almost all ceramic painters in Vietri are very good and have technical skill to envy; rather, this was a painter full of talent and inventive strength. He indicated a nearby shelf: “The color is there, please take it.” Seeing me look for the place he had noted, he added, “I can’t get up.” Then I noticed in that dim spot that he had only one leg, and I saw two crutches in the corner next to him. I told him of my admiration for the decoration of the vase and his dark face lit up. We talked about painting. Despite his young age, he was well educated; he had read a lot and was so eager to hear, to know more. I stayed a little longer and there was no lack of subjects to talk about. I promised him I would return and promised myself too...