A bohemian lifestyle translated into art

In the 12th article in a series on 20th-century artists who shaped Maltese modernism, Joseph Agius discusses the abstract works of Pawl Carbonaro

Contemporary Maltese art is blessed with practising artists who have built a career fully devoted to their craft.

[attach id=893088 size="medium" align="right" type="image"]Pawl Carbonaro at his gallery in Żebbuġ, Gozo.[/attach]

Pawl Carbonaro (b. 1948) is one such artist who had given up the security offered by working at one of Malta’s leading banks to take up art as a full-time concern.

He flourished into one of Malta’s outstanding contemporary artists besides helping establish modernism at a time in the late 1960s and early 1970s when young blood was needed to bolster the pioneering work of the previous generation of Maltese artists.

Carbonaro’s father was instrumental in the career choice that Pawl made when he was still a very young man.

Hugo Carbonaro (1908-1979) was one of the founders of the art groups of the 1950s which ushered modernism in Malta. This paternal inspiration surely helped in the young artist’s germination; his parents’ frequent visits to Italy introduced the young boy to various historical and archaeological...