The ice technique of the painter Pancaldi

Gaetano Pancaldi was born in Piumazzo in the province of Modena in 1922 and died in the same town in 2014.

Self-taught painter, from an early age he tries his hand at various techniques ranging from oil painting, collage, watercolor to experimental techniques such as frozen watercolour.

This technique which he invented in the 1960s and perfected throughout his life consisted in placing the still fresh painting at sub-zero temperatures so that the crystallization of the pictorial surface would create unpredictable geometric patterns.

With frost, Pancaldi was able to represent landscapes, figures, animals or people in a dreamlike and silent atmosphere.

Despite being a provincial painter it is undeniable that he has created something that has no equal in contemporary painting.

Our company has purchased the entire Pancaldi archive from the heirs.

We invite you to visit the section dedicated to the freezing technique of Gaetano Pancaldi by clicking HERE.

Gaetano Pancaldi is a poet of microcosms, of distant and now forgotten worlds, of peasant and village atmospheres relived with ingenuity and sincere passion, with eyes full of wonder and curiosity of the children of the past. He brings back to life the rituals of the countryside, the patient work of the oxen, the timeless gestures of the peasants and housewives, the rustic and welcoming environments in which the foods had unrepeatable flavors and the stories were born to become proverbs and nursery rhymes to be transmitted for centuries .
Paintings in which the colors and the lights rediscover the clarity of distant springs, the joy of the flights of the swallows and the songs of the reapers, atmospheres in which the falling of the snow at Christmas or the blossoming of the roses in May were magical events. desired as if they were happening for the first time. On the other hand, he has tried to render the hysteria of the contemporary world, without joy and without wonder, where the rhythm of the actions is programmed in locations foreign to man and his nature, therefore unnatural and almost cruel. The contrast is dramatic, the effect impressive even if more technical and, as it were, forced.
Pancaldi's true inspiration is the lost world of processions and threshing, of the stables and threshing floors resplendent with golden chaff, of the chicks following the hens along the rows tilled by the effort of the spade and hoe. There is a sense of the harshest effort, in his paintings, and of the simplest and purest joy.