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Dear Reader,
It has often been suggested that Picasso was at his happiest when he was making his ceramics.
Large clay deposits in the South of France made the area of Vallauris an attractive place for artisans and potters to reside in the early part of the 20th century. While Picasso's playful owl jugs and gravy boats in the shape of doves celebrated the Mediterranean ideas of 'Joie de Vivre', his works from that period also evoke a sense of the timeless conflicts between mortals and immortals, life and death. This idea is also reflected in the firing techniques of pottery itself; the inferno at the belly of the kiln versus the fragile raw clay, fire versus earth and life versus death.
Picasso's relationships with fellow potters based in Vallauris at the Madoura ceramics workshop blossomed, collaborating with ceramicists such as Julio Gonzales and Robert Picault. This was the first time he had forged artistic relationships like this since his intimate friendship (and part rivalry) with Georges Braques during the pioneering years of Cubism.
Robert Picault is one of my favourite ceramicists. The rustic simplicity of Picault's work gets me excited every time, I love inspecting the layers of craftsmanship that have gone into each piece. Often he used white terracotta clay with a pink or white tin glaze, layered with copper oxide patterns. The copper oxide against the pink glaze was, I'm sure, an inspiration to the Grand Dame of pottery Lucie Rie, when she herself chose this glaze and copper oxide combination in the 1970's. The pinks and greens that both these artists chose somehow manage to clash, yet harmonize, at the same time. Of course, every piece tells a different story, and I'm always on the lookout for my next Picault.
I often wonder if these collaborations made Picasso feel his happiest, and increased his energy and hunger to create. Like a Flea on the wall, I sometimes picture both artists enjoying a few glasses of red wine in the Mediterranean sun against a chorus of crickets in the background. When I hold one of Picault's plates up to the light, I can picture him flicking his horsehair brush dipped in oxide onto the glaze, or scraping patterns into the slip - before sloping off for a round of petanque and a smoke with Picasso.
Needless to say, Picasso was incredibly prolific over those 20 years in Vallauris - executing an astonishing few thousand works.
He must have been happy.
With Love,
Florence x
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