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Lancette Arts Journal Founded in 2000 |
Art Reviews |
October 2004 |
Picasso and Ceramics is on show at the University of Toronto Art Centre until January 23, 2005.
By Alidë Kohlhaas
Of the three great 20th century artists Spain gave us, namely Pablo Picasso, Joan Miro and Salvador Dali, we usually associate only Miro closely with ceramics. The time has come to alter past perception as the splendid exhibition, Picasso and Ceramics, makes very clear. Organized by The Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Arts, Toronto, and the Musée des beaux-arts du Quebec, this exhibit has turned our ideas about Picasso in his last stage of creativity topsy-turvy, and in the process has allowed us to look at this artist in a refreshed manner.
It must be stated right here that Picasso never actually worked on the wheel. But still, he worked with clay. Léopold L. Foulem, a co-curator of this major exhibit and a ceramic artist, stated that Picasso may have lacked actual experience on the wheel, but he was a true ceramic artist, nevertheless. Foulem should know. He spent 20 years studying Picasso's ceramics, which allows him to interpret the artist's ceramic work in a fresh light and to make such a profound claim.
Picasso created more than 4,000 ceramics, about double of what Miro produced. The difference between the two artists was not only that Miro knew how to employ the wheel to create vessels and objects himself, but that his works were always considered art, while Picasso's were seen quite differently. His method involved co-opting freshly thrown or drying pots and plates from the racks at Madoura pottery in Vallauris, Provence. What he took of the racks . . .
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