Gabriel Caruana (7 April 1929 – 16 July 2018) was a Maltese

artist An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse refers to a practitioner in the visual arts only. However, th ...

who worked primarily in

ceramics A ceramic is any of the various hard, brittle, heat-resistant and corrosion-resistant materials made by shaping and then firing an inorganic, nonmetallic material, such as clay, at a high temperature. Common examples are earthenware, porcelain ...

. He studied at the Malta School of Art (1953–59), the Accademia Pietro Vannucci in

Perugia Perugia (, , ; lat, Perusia) is the capital city of Umbria in central Italy, crossed by the River Tiber, and of the province of Perugia. The city is located about north of Rome and southeast of Florence. It covers a high hilltop and part ...

(1965), the School of the Detroit Society of Arts and Crafts (1966) and the Istituto Statale per la Ceramica in

Faenza Faenza (, , ; rgn, Fènza or ; la, Faventia) is an Italian city and comune of 59,063 inhabitants in the province of Ravenna, Emilia-Romagna, situated southeast of Bologna. Faenza is home to a historical manufacture of majolica-ware glazed ea ...

(1967). He exhibited internationally, including a group exhibit by Maltese artists at

Hunter College Hunter College is a public university in New York City. It is one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York and offers studies in more than one hundred undergraduate and postgraduate fields across five schools. It also admin ...

in 1996, and at venues such as the head office lobby of the

Bank of Valletta Bank of Valletta plc (BOV) is a Maltese bank and financial services company headquartered in Santa Venera. It is the oldest established financial services provider in Malta and one of the largest. As of 2014, the bank had 44 branches, 6 regio ...

Biography

Gabriel Caruana was born in Balzan, Malta on 7 April 1929. He was the son of Anthony Caruana, Malta Police Force sergeant and Beatrice Ebejer Michelizzi. He studied sculpture at the Malta Government School of Arts in the classes of George Borg,

Emvin Cremona Emanuel Vincent "Emvin" Cremona (27 May 1919 – 29 January 1987) was a Maltese artist and stamp designer. He is regarded as one of the best Maltese artists of the 20th century. Cremona is known for designing most Maltese stamps from 1957 to t ...

and

Vincent Apap Vincent ( la, Vincentius) is a male given name derived from the Roman name Vincentius, which is derived from the Latin word (''to conquer''). People with the given name Artists * Vincent Apap (1909–2003), Maltese sculptor *Vincent van Gogh ...

. In 1980 he married Mary Rose Buttigieg, an English and Art teacher and artist. The couple had two daughters; Gabriella and Raffaella born respectively in 1981 and 1983.

Art and career

Gabriel Caruana was a pioneer of modern art in Malta, drawing inspiration from popular art traditions and the architecture of the Island. Caruana held solo exhibitions in Malta, England, Italy and Switzerland and showed his work in group exhibitions in Osaka, Detroit, Munich, Tripoli, London, Israel, Melbourne, and several times in Malta. His works can be found at the International Museum of Ceramics of Faenza, at the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, at City of Manchester Art Gallery, and, at the National Museum of Fine Arts Malta. Two works of Gabriel Caruana were sold at international auctions - ''Sans Titre'' was sold at Beaussant & Lefevre in Paris in 2008 and ''Untitled'' was sold at Christie's, London in 2013. In 1952 Gabriel Caruana, with St. Gabriel Band Club of Ħal Balzan, took part in the National Carnival Festivities in Valletta, winning all honours in float, dance and costumes. Between 1971 and 1990 he was a ceramics teacher at the School of Arts and Crafts at Tarġa Gap, Mosta, Malta, which was renamed Malta College of Arts, Science and Technology in 2001. When he retired in 1990 he was succeeded at the school by Tony Briffa. In 1990, he set up an Arts, Culture and Crafts Centre at

Ta' Ganu Windmill Ta' Ganu Windmill (also known as Tal-Maħlut Windmill) is an eighteenth century windmill in Birkirkara, Malta. It was built in 1724 by the António Manoel de Vilhena Foundation.L-Imtieħen tat-Tħin tal-Qamħ fil-Gżejjer Maltin, Printit Ltd, Clif ...

Birkirkara Birkirkara (abbreviated as B'Kara) is a city in the central region of Malta. It is the second most populous on the island, with 24,356 inhabitants as of 2020. The town consists of five autonomous parishes: Saint Helen, Saint Joseph the Worker, Ou ...

Malta Malta ( , , ), officially the Republic of Malta ( mt, Repubblika ta' Malta ), is an island country in the Mediterranean Sea. It consists of an archipelago, between Italy and Libya, and is often considered a part of Southern Europe. It lies ...

, with his wife, Mary Rose Caruana.

References

External links

Gabriel Caruana: Official siteBank of Valletta: ExhibitionsGabriel Caruana: Latest info, work, reviews, comments and biographyArtist Gabriel Caruana passes away aged 89: Times of Malta
Maltese ceramicists 1929 births 2018 deaths 20th-century ceramists 21st-century ceramists People from Balzan {{Europe-artist-stub