Pablo Picasso

PABLO PICASSO (Malaga, 1881 - Mougins, France, 1973).
"Cruchon hibon". Madoura, ca.1955.
In white earthenware, with blue, black and brown engobed paint, glazed with knife engraving.
Edition of 500 copies.
With relief stamp and hand painted inscription on the back: "Edition Picasso, Madoura".
Provenance: private collection, Barcelona.
Measurements: 27,5 cm. height.

Created around 1955, this owl-shaped jug was made at the prestigious Madoura workshop in Vallauris, France, a place that became the epicenter of Picasso's experimentation with clay since 1946. It is an eloquent example of the Malaga-born artist's prolific incursion into the world of ceramics.

The artist transforms a utilitarian object into a zoomorphic sculpture, fusing functionality and art. The bulbous base of the vessel suggests the body of the bird, while the elongated neck becomes the head, crowned by two large, round eyes that stare at the viewer.

Picasso showed a remarkable interest in the owl as a symbol of wisdom, mystery and vigilance, and incorporated it on several occasions in his ceramic pieces.

The technique used is engobed painting, where colored clay pigments (in this case, blue, black and brown) are applied to the piece before the final firing. This allows for vibrant colors and a particular texture. The intense cobalt blue defines the plumage spots, while black and brown are used to outline the facial features, the wings and the small claws at the base, bringing dynamism to the figure.

A distinctive detail is the knife engraving, a technique that Picasso used with mastery. By incising the engobe before firing and glazing, he succeeded in creating lines and textures that add a graphic character and an almost painterly energy to the three-dimensional surface of the ceramic.

This jug belongs to a limited edition of 500 pieces. The back of the piece bears the embossed seals of the workshop and the hand-painted inscription: "Edition Picasso, Madoura". This mark guarantees that the work was created under the direct supervision of the artist and with the quality standards of the renowned Vallauris workshop.

Creator of Cubism together with Braque, Picasso began his artistic studies in Barcelona, at the Provincial School of Fine Arts (1895). Only two years later, in 1897, Picasso had his first solo exhibition at the café "ElsQuatreGats". Paris was to become Pablo's great goal and in 1900 he moved to the French capital for a brief period of time. When he returned to Barcelona, he began to work on a series of works in which the influences of all the artists he had known or whose work he had seen could be seen. He is a sponge that absorbs everything but retains nothing; he is searching for a personal style. Between 1901 and 1907 he developed the Blue and Pink Stages, characterized by the use of these colors and by their subject matter with sordid, isolated figures, with gestures of sorrow and suffering. The painting of these early years of the twentieth century was undergoing continuous changes and Picasso could not remain on the sidelines. He became interested in Cézanne, and based on his example he developed a new pictorial formula together with his friend Braque: Cubism. But Picasso did not stop there and in 1912 he practiced collage in painting; from that moment on, anything goes, imagination became the master of art. Picasso is the great revolutionary and when all painters are interested in cubism, he is concerned with the classicism of Ingres. The surrealist movement of 1925 did not catch him unawares and, although he did not participate openly, it served as an element of rupture with the previous, introducing in his work distorted figures with great force and not exempt of rage and fury. As with Goya, Picasso was also greatly influenced by his personal and social situation at the time of his work. His relationships with women, often tumultuous, will seriously affect his work. However, what had the greatest impact on Picasso was the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War and the bombing of Guernica, which led to the creation of the most famous work of contemporary art. Paris was his refuge for a long time, but the last years of his life were spent in the south of France, working in a very personal style, with vivid colors and strange shapes. Picasso is represented in the most important museums around the world, such as the Metropolitan, the MOMA and the Guggenheim in New York, the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, the National Gallery in London or the Reina Sofia in Madrid.