claudio pulli - claudio pulli - Lidded vase - ceramics - Ceramic

Vase by Claudio Pulli in polychrome glazed ceramic with metallic lusters

Height: 16 cm


Claudio Pulli encountered Art in a family environment, being the son of sculptor and decorator Giovanni (Lecce, 1892 – Selargius, Cagliari, 1976). The father trained in Lecce, the family’s hometown, by working in the workshop of sculptor Luigi Guacci. Following a commission, Giovanni arrived in Sassari in 1929 and moved there with his family: at the time he had three children. In 1929 Giovanni Pulli opened his art workshop in the city, on Corso Vittorio Emanuele at number 89, and for nine years he had the task of teaching ceramics at the Sassari Institute of Art. Claudio studied at the Sassari Institute of Art and had teachers such as Masters Stanis Dessy, Filippo Figari, and Eugenio Tavolara. The talents of young Claudio, already well honed by the family apprenticeship he could pursue in his father’s workshop, were guided by his teachers at the Institute of Art (he was skilled in sculpture and painting). Pulli caught Tavolara’s eye, who invited him to refine his skills further by looking to the Italian panorama. Thus, after earning the diploma of Maestro d’Arte in Sassari, Claudio Pulli went to Faenza, a major center of Italian ceramics, to perfect himself: his great love was terracotta, being truly gifted in shaping and decorating it. In 1955 he married Graziella Doro, a lifelong love that saw the birth of Giovanni (1956) and Roberto (1961), who accompanied Claudio in his works and still today pass on the secrets of this ancient art.

Pulli learned various ceramic techniques from the Faenza masters (such as lead coating, tin glaze, enamel firing, engobe) and conducted many experiments, curious and eager to obtain new effects of the material to artistically enhance. Shy and introverted in character, Pulli was a practical, direct, yet reclusive man and artist: he loved his work deeply, the culture of making was his own. In his artistic career he participated in many exhibitions, winning important prizes and receiving numerous recognitions, in Italy and abroad. Among the exhibitions to note is “Sassari in Bottiglia,” born from an idea of the Sassari decorator Settimio Sassu (Sassari, 1918 – second half of the 20th century) and which consisted of glass bottles of various shapes on which caricatures of important figures from the world of culture, entertainment, and politics of postwar Sassari were molded: the body of the character was the glass container while the heads were molded by Sassu, by Pulli, and by the then very young Gian Carlo Marchisio, a collaborator.

Important shows for Pulli included the 1970 edition of the Sardinia Trade Fair held in Cagliari and a solo exhibition he was later able to organize in Tokyo. He could also exhibit in Faenza with a solo show at the Civic Museum of Ceramics. From the early 1970s he opened his ceramic studio in Selargius, near Cagliari, where for decades he produced his series and one-of-a-kind pieces, inspired by Sardinia and its archaic crafts but also creating refined contemporary design objects. A sensitive man, introspective and fond of quiet, he also produced works of sacred art: in several churches in the province of Cagliari one can admire his Stations of the Cross, or his paintings or statues.