Pablo Picasso

PABLO PICASSO (Malaga, 1881 - Mougins, France, 1973).
"Visage et hibou", Vallauris, ca,1955.
Painted ceramic vase, Madoura workshop.
Picasso edition, copy 109/200.
With stamps Edicion Picasso, Madoura and numbering on the base.
Measurements: 25 x 23 x 20 cm.

When Pablo Picasso, with his unmistakable style, discovered ceramics in the Madoura Atelier in Vallauris, he was captivated by the quality of the clay and the skill of its craftsmen. Vallauris, Madoura and Picasso are, in fact, three names inseparably linked since 1946. Although the artist had already visited the village in 1936, it was after World War II, in July 1946, that his interest in ceramics was awakened. While on vacation in nearby Golfe Juan-les Pins, and after learning about the Madoura workshop, heir to a long family tradition in ceramics, Picasso began a frenetic production that resulted in more than two thousand pieces (including plates, vases, vases, sculptures, etc.) in just a few years.

In the vase we are now bidding for, the representation of the human face with a schematic solution and the owl painted with agile strokes on the fired clay, respond to Picasso's desire to link local pottery traditions with Greco-Roman mythology. The owl was a bird revered as an emblem of Antibes, admired for its association with Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom. Like the ancient potters, Picasso appreciated animal motifs for their metaphorical potential. Mysterious effigies, Picasso's ceramic creatures represent all facets of human nature. The balanced chromatic combination demonstrates Picasso's excellent skills as a ceramist.

The decoration is made with simple and expressive strokes in dark tones on a light background, revealing the natural reddish color of the clay in the lower part of the piece. The drawing of the owl and the human face is characterized by its economy of lines, expressive eyes, and a stroke that combines the naive and the essential, in line with Picasso's graphic language. The style corresponds to the stage in which Picasso used the ceramic medium not only as a functional support, but also as a surface for plastic experimentation, integrating form and drawing into a unitary whole.

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 individual exhibition at the café "Els Quatre Gats". 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 the 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. 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.