As a pioneer of the cubist style, Pablo Picasso (b.1881), is renowned for his painting and print-making. Unbeknownst to many, however, is the noise he generated within the ceramic art world.
In 1946, Picasso and Francoise Gilot ventured to the Annual Pottery Exhibition in Vallauris. While visiting the Cote d’Azur, Gilot introduced Picasso to Suzanne and George Ramie; owners of the Madoura Ceramic Workshop. Upon meeting the famed artist, the couple gifted their resources to him completely. With open access to this unchartered medium, Picasso was free to explore and invent as he saw fit.
As opposed to both the emotional and physical toll which painting took on him, painting ceramics was a pacifying escape. The bright colors and clear water of the French Riviera brought life into focus and fostered an interest for a more personal artistic approach. Picasso had consistently been interested in the ‘object-hood’ of things. The artistic style which he developed was based on a deconstruction of objects themselves. Re-arranging the linear elements of the physical world around him had become second nature to Picasso. However, it was while living in Vallauris, that Picasso was able to address the inner psychology of the physical world.
By portraying one subject on the surface of another, Picasso was forced to deal with a collision of object-hood. The face of his dear Francoise Gilot would have to compromise according to the shape of the vessel he was painting at the time. Working so intimately with the objects around him, Picasso was able to engross himself in their psychology. For example, in a series of plates, and serving dishes, Picasso paints scraps of food, bones, and fruit rinds. He is illustrating the function of the vessel, and ultimately illuminating the experience of what it is to be a plate.
By his late 60’s, Picasso’s work was quickly becoming monopolized by the upper echelons of society. By transitioning to the prolific medium of ceramics, Picasso was able to popularize his work. He was well aware of the strain this transition would put on his career. Kahnweiler, his art dealer at the time, was vehemently opposed to this shift in medium. He was confident their prolificacy would seriously erode at the value his work had already accrued.
While in living in Vallauris, Picasso produced over 4,000 ceramic pieces; each with over 100 editions. Suddenly, people all over the world were able to afford his work. The Madoura workshop shipped thousands of Picasso ceramics internationally. However, the transition from painting to pottery was far from seamless. George Ramie recalls Picasso trying to throw a teacup for over ten hours. After some time, instead of trying to master an entirely new medium, Picasso commissioned unique and specific ceramic designs from the Madoura workshop. He would then take the piece of pottery to his personal studio and add his own design.
Fusing painting, printmaking, and sculpture, Picasso was able to foster a new direction for the ancient art of pottery. His natural whimsy and cubist perspective offered an entirely unique approach to shape and form. Perhaps the optimism that followed WWII influenced his transition to ceramics. Regardless of its exact origin, Picasso was now interested in creating these functional, whimsical, and illusory, pieces of artistic design.