Gabriel Caruana
With the demise of Gabriel Caruana, Malta lost one of its most iconic artists, a sculptor and a master of the art of ceramics. Caruana belonged to a group of artists who, in the 1960s, in the spirit of the zeitgeist of the age and the celebratory euphoria of the nation’s Independence, forged a renaissance … Continued
With the demise of Gabriel Caruana, Malta lost one of its most iconic artists, a sculptor and a master of the art of ceramics. Caruana belonged to a group of artists who, in the 1960s, in the spirit of the zeitgeist of the age and the celebratory euphoria of the nation’s Independence, forged a renaissance of the arts.
Of the group of artists that included stalwarts of the calibre of Emvin Cremona, Antoine Camilleri, Frank Portelli, Esprit Barthet and others, Caruana was the most daring, provocative and innovative. A product of his surroundings, his prodigious output always reflected the milieu of his land. His works echoed the chromaticity of the whole Mediterranean spectrum, evoking the stratified layers of its artistic heritage from prehistory through the Baroque, and reaching to the zeitgeist of the present age, for he was, above all, an artist who always reflected the norms of Modernity.
Throughout his life, Caruana remained a passionate, ardent and original artist, blessed with a Midas touch and yet never losing a child’s-eye vision of things. He was, as his close friend Victor Pasmore noted, “a wonderful artist”, a magician, seer and conjurer constantly producing works of artistic merit and poetic intensity. As a person, Caruana effused a mirror image of the same passion and joie-de-vivre apparent in the exhilarating production of his work.
Despite his reputation as an iconic and internationally recognised artist, he always remained a humble person, generous and loveable, a personality who one could well refer to as the perfect personification of a good man.
Caruana will be remembered as an amiable spirited shaman, an exciting explorer, who was constantly searching for the mythical and magical in the world of art. It is his natal island’s solemn duty to honour and esteem his legacy, for he was one of the most outstanding artists of the modern era.
