Ambrogio Pozzi Portaombrelli
Published on: By James White
“Simplifying is difficult; complicating things is very easy”, said Bruno Munari, in a text about his colleague..Ambrogio Pozzi. He goes on to say Pozzi’s dedication to the development of form for use, was not influenced by current fashion and style. Pozzi was always driven by the material first and use second.
Ambrogio Pozzi worked for his father’s firm Ceramica Franco Pozzi, and for many many other businesses in the world wide manufacturing of design objects. He worked for Rosenthal of Selb for twenty years, Reidel of Austria, the Rinascente department store, Alitalia Airlines, Harvey-Guzzini, Padova Argenti (silver), Zojirushi of Osaka, Japan, Toray of Tokyo and many more.
Ambrogio Pozzi was an important Italian 20th century industrial designer. He worked in ceramic, glass, plastic, and metals. He collaborated with prominent designers of his time including, Gio Ponti, Pierre Cardin and Joe Columbo. He was good friends with the important Finnish designer Tapio Wirkkala.
In 2000 he won the second annual prize of the Museum MIDeC Museo Internazionale Design Ceramico at Cerro di Laveno Mombello, Italy and a catolog accompanying a showing of his output was published. The catolog contains essays by the president of the museum, Marcello Morandini and Ettore Sottsass both paying tribute to Ambrogio Pozzi’s fifty year body of work.
Ambrogio Pozzi was born in Varese, Italy in 1931. He went to a scientific high school and while starting his studies at university he spent a year at the Institute of Ceramics at Faenza, where he made connections with the most important artists of the sector. After graduatiion he turned his attention back to ceramics and returned to Faenza frequently for free courses to deepen his knowledge relative to the techniques in stoneware and glazes. Frrom 1950 he began working for his father’s company, Le Ceramica Franco Pozzi of Gallarate, Italy which is in the Lombardy region, province of Varese. He designed many objects for the company, not only in ceramics but also glass and wood. During this period he began to participate in ceramics competiitions with unique pieces as well as sets of pieces for which he won numerous prizes and recognition. This allowed him to travel abroad, visiting Denmark, Switzerland, England, France, Germany establishing relationships with artists and designers from these countries. He participated in many national and international shows by invitation in the USA, Central America, Brasil, Canada and eastern countries. His works appear in various museums in Italy and around the world.”