Picasso - Working with ceramic

Madoura Potter Workshop is located in Vallauris, France. In the mid 1900’s it was owned and operated by Suzanne and George Ramie

In 1946 Picasso visited a Pottery exhibition “Romaunt de la Rose, in Vallauris, France during this visit Picasso was introduced to the Madoura Pottery Workshop where many famous potters have created works over hundreds of years. At this time Picasso became fascinated with the workshop and the creative act of pottery. He went to the studio and created 3 ceramic works. However Picasso left the workshop before seeing the completed works after the last firing of the kiln. In fact these 3 works still remain at Madoura. Many years’ later theses works (a little head of a faun and two bulls modeled by hand) were cast in bronze.

A year passed before Picasso went back to Vallauris to see the pottery exhibition where he once again fell in love with the artistic form of ceramic and pottery making. Upon visiting the Madoura Pottery Workshop he was surprised to see that his 3 ceramics were in pristine condition. During his return to the studio he was no longer looked upon as an amateur but a master, as he has studied the craft, tools and its artists. With him he brought a cardboard box of designs, an ingenious vigor for the artistic form. This spurred such creative ingeniousness in Picasso he began to create the very beginning of his ceramic collection that we know today. Also endearing him to Maroura Pottery Workshop was an employee Jacqueline Roque who later married Picasso. In fact Picasso was so in love with Jacqueline that she was able to get Picasso to denounce his children as legitimate heirs, thus securing her the Picasso fortune upon his death.

Currently on display and available at Galerie Michael are the following:

PICASSO, Pablo, 1881-1973
Face no. 202, 1963
Ceramic plate
9 7/8 in. ( 25.1 cm )

Hand’s with Fish

Ceramic Bowl

Currently it is unknown what the significance is between Picasso and fish but it is safe to assume that Picasso drew widely on his surroundings. In the1950’s Picasso spent a significant amount of time in the French Rivera in fact he met is last wife, Jacqueline Roque at Madoura Pottery in Vallauris. In fact it is widely due to Jacqueline and Suzanne and George Ramie, owners of the Madoura Pottery Workshop that we have Picasso Ceramics. Picasso, having been in some of the most beautiful cities on the French Rivera during the time Hand’s with Fish was created it would be only natural for Picasso to depict sea life in his work.

The symbolism with Hand’s with Fish could easily be the encompassing embrace of two worlds coming together in harmony. Another take on this ceramic’s image could be an ironic twist of fate that man can live in harmony with fish but eventually the fish (nature) is conquered in the end by man: man catches fish, cooks fish, presents fish on a plate and eventually eats fish. Some may even say that Picasso’s sense of humor and life view could be brought out in this one work.

The Faun’s Head

Ceramic Plate

This grinning, ceramic faun has been the subject of several of Picasso's work during this period as he drew much inspiration from this classic mythological character. Fauns were most known for their love of dancing, entertainment, and overall fun; Picasso seems to have tapped into this aspect, creating an expressive and lively rendition of a faun's face in this large, oval plate. The colorful quality and simplistic line enables the ceramic to come joyously alive with its whimsical and childlike character making this work easy to appreciate. The colors or glazing in this specific ceramic is extremely rare and unique as Picasso generally created earthenware which was unglazed and hand-painted with neutral colors of white, brown, black and blue tones.

Picasso’s use of the faun in this particular work is seemingly appropriate for Picasso’s character and personal demons that he was battling during the creation of this work 1984. As we all know during the later part of Picasso’s life he became more and more aware of his diminishing masculinity creating a focus strictly on phallic objects and subject matter, making the Faun a perfect subject for Picasso.

Understanding Picasso's Ceramics

Chagall's Four Tails from the Arabian Nights

In the spring of 1946, Marc Chagall was in exile in the United States as the war was drawing to a close. He was accorded the singular honor of a major retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. In the fall he returned to his home in High Falls, New York in the Catskill Mountains where he began work on commission for a suite of thirteen colored lithographs to illustrate the Arabian Nights. These were Chagall's very first color prints. As with his etchings he began this project with studies in gouache. He then worked over the litho stones in great detail to create color as luminous and opulent as possible.

The Arabian Nights

“Is it possible, that by telling these tales,
one might indeed save one’s self?”

The character, Scheherezade thought so. In fact, she tells each of the Arabian Nights tales in order to survive a little longer at the mercy of her listener, the Sultan.

The Arabian Nights stories are some of the world’s great treasures. They have existed for thousands of years, consisting of tales told in Persia, Arabia, India and Asia. The Arabian Nights (also known as The 1001 Arabian Nights) have inspired writers the world over with the ancient power of story.

There are versions of these stories in many languages and they all convey the great sense of adventure, truth, fantastic imagination, justice, and faith embodied by the great civilizations that contributed stories and ideas to the collection.

The Arabian Nights include fairy tales, fables, romances, farces, legends, and parables. The tales use a sweeping variety of settings, including Baghdad, Basrah, Cairo and Damascus, as well as China, Greece, India, North Africa and Turkey.

These fanciful, sometimes brutal tales, revel in the art of storytelling. The underlying suggestion of the Arabian Nights is that a fantastically precious jewel exists which, when it comes into contact with people, actually changes them. The jewel is the magnificently powerful art of story. There may not be any better examples in the world of how art, trickery, magic and craft can swirl together and form a world that every reader and listener wants to enter. Regardless of the situation presented in any particular Arabian Nights story, the assumption contained in the story is that life is always worth living and that human endeavor, along with human weakness, is a wonderful and fascinating thing to behold. These stories form a powerful mental connection between the ancient civilizations of the East and those of the West. Moreso than any other piece of writing in history, these stories illustrate that the minds of the East and of the West consider carefully the same subject matter.

Pablo Picasso 1881-1973

Pablo Picasso was not only the greatest painter and most innovative sculptor of the 20th century; he was also its foremost printer. His published prints total approximately 2000, including images pulled from metal, stone, wood, linoleum and celluloid. His unpublished prints, perhaps 200 more, have yet to be exactly counted.

Picasso’s prints demonstrate his intuitive and characteristic ability to recognize and exploit the possibilities inherent in any medium in which he chose to work. Once he had mastered the traditional methods of a print medium, such as etching on metal, Picasso usually experimented further, pursuing, for example, scarcely known intaglio techniques such as sugar-lift aquatint.

Early on the copperplate, with its variants of the etching and drypoint, fascinated the young artist. In the Parisian ateliers of the masters of this craft—Eugene Delatre, Louis Forn, and above all Roger Lacouriere—he was introduced to many new techniques. Picasso later acquired his own press on which he made many trial proofs and further explored the secrets of printmaking.

Alex Renoir: A Visual Composer

When one looks at a painting by Alexandre Renoir one will see a glimpse at the “Impressionist” movement as characterized by an artist’s ability to render a fleeting moment in time, creating candid compositions, and capturing an “impression” of the ever changing effects of light and atmospheric compositions. Viewers can detect Alexandre’s great-grandfather’s artistic essence and techniques in the works he is creating today, which are augmented with his own original flair.

The use of various palette knives in oil paint allows Alexandre to create a sculptural feel to the canvas. The paint is very thick and bold. It allows one to feel good. Impressionism is one of those styles that include the viewer as much as it does the artist. No two people will see the canvas the same way.

His paintings evoke a certain magic within. You can see the expressions on the viewers faces. It’s that invisible bond between the viewer and the painting. It captures the soul and brings a serenity that is not explainable.

The textures and colors flow across the canvas creating an affect that is captivating. His style is a mix of Impressionism-old and new. We delight in the results of his strokes of genius.

Alexandre Renoir was born in 1974 in Cagne Sur Mer in the south of France. We now have a great opportunity to experience his ethereal work.

The Boating Party

The Maison Fournaise

Parisians would flock to Chatou's Maison Fournaise to rent rowing skiffs, eat a good meal, or stay the night. In 1857, the entrepreneur Alphonse Fournaise bought land in Chatou to open a boat rental, restaurant, and small hotel for the new tourist trade. From the mid 1870s, Renoir often visited the Maison Fournaise to enjoy its convivial atmosphere and rural beauty. He painted scenes of the restaurant, as well as several portraits of Fournaise family members and landscapes of the surrounding area. In fact, Renoir occasionally traded paintings with the Fournaise family for food and lodging.

Renoir and Friends

Renoir's Luncheon of the Boating Party not only conveys the light-hearted leisurely mood of the Maison Fournaise, but also reflects the character of mid- to late-nineteenth century French social structure. The restaurant welcomed customers of many classes including bourgeois businessmen, society women, artists (Renoir and Caillebotte), actresses, writers (Guy de Maupassant), critics and, with the new, shorter work week--a result of the industrial revolution--seamstresses and shop girls. This diverse group embodied a new, modern Parisian society that accepted, as it continued to develop and advanced the French Revolution's promise of liberté, egalité, fraternité.