Arnaldo Pomodoro, whose bronze spheres decorate prominent public spaces around the world, dies at 98

Arnaldo Pomodoro, one of Italy’s most prominent contemporary artists, has died at age 98

ROME -- Arnaldo Pomodoro, one of Italy's most prominent contemporary artists whose bronze spheres decorate iconic public spaces from the Vatican to the United Nations, has died at age 98, his foundation said Monday.

Pomodoro died at home in Milan on Sunday, the eve of his 99th birthday, according to a statement from Carlotta Montebello, director general of the Arnaldo Pomodoro Foundation.

Pomodoro’s spheres are instantly recognizable: shiny, smooth bronze globes with clawed out interiors that Pomodoro has said referred to the superficial perfection of exteriors and the troubled complexity of interiors.

The Vatican’s sphere, which occupies a prominent place in the Pigna Courtyard of the Vatican Museums, features an internal mechanism that rotates with the wind. “In my work I see the cracks, the eroded parts, the destructive potential that emerges from our time of disillusionment,” the Vatican quoted Pomodoro as saying about its sphere.

The United Nations in New York received a 3.3-meter diameter “Sphere Within Sphere” sculpture as a gift from Italy in 1996. The U.N. sphere has both humanistic and technology-oriented meaning and referenced the coming of the new millennium: “a smooth exterior womb erupted by complex interior forms,” and “a promise for the rebirth of a less troubled and destructive world,” Pomodoro said of it.

Other spheres are located at museums around the world and outside the Italian foreign ministry, which has the original work that Pomodoro made in 1966 for the Montreal Expo that began his monumental sculpture project.

Pomodoro was born in Montefeltro, Italy, on June 23, 1926. In addition to his spheres, he designed theatrical sets, land projects and machines. He had multiple retrospectives and taught at Stanford University, University of California at Berkeley and Mills College, according to his biography on the foundation website.