Mario Iudici ^©  

(Caltagirone, 1928)

Those who love popular ceramics, and in general the artisan traditions of the Sicilian land, owe a great debt to Maestro Mario Iudici.

Since the 1960s, this ceramist from Caltagirone has dedicated himself body and soul the rediscovery of a popular production, which was in danger of gradually disappearing. 

It was a courageous choice: at that time, the process of revaluation of popular art by scholars and collectors and, 

devoting to traditional ceramics, risked being a commercially unsuccessful operation.

We owe it in large part to Maestro Iudici and his love for traditions , if popular tools, once very common in the Sicilian countryside and towns, were not prematurely relegated to museum showcases only, and if up to now there has instead been a continuity of production. The Maestro has continued to create, for enthusiasts and collectors, the objects of the Calatina tradition: anthropomorphic oil lamps, saimere for conserving pork suet; quarter to 

fill the water at the public fountain and bùmmoli to keep it fresh; u scutiddaru to do the laundry; muds - large dishes for drying tomato extract in the sun; cylindrical burmias of various sizes to preserve various foods; the tablets of Madonnas and saints to be affixed to the bedside to protect 

those who slept there, and so on.

But Iudici is also a refined potter, able to create objects which, while drawing on iconography and motifs from the past, have the characteristics of a unique 

piece and of artistic ceramics.