Few people are unaware of who Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) is. However, many do not know that he was one of the major ceramicists of the twentieth century. Without a doubt, he is the first artist to radically change the intrinsic status of the ceramic object per se. With Picasso, the object becomes subject, that is to say an abstraction. It loses its inherent function; its quintessence. It becomes an image, a concept, instead of being just a utensil, a thing. Unfortunately, his exceptional conceptual contribution is virtually unknown, or simply misunderstood by the general public and many specialists.
Contrary to popular belief, the relationship between Picasso and ceramics is detectable precociously early in his career. In the early 1900s in Paris, he had already worked in clay with Paco Durio (1875-1940), his friend and Spanish expatriate artist. A second collaboration took place in the thirties when he co-operated with ceramicist Jean van Dongen (1883-1970), brother of the famous painter Kees van Dongen. Back then, he essentially decorated vases executed by the potter. However, it is after a decisive visit in 1946 to Vallauris, a village of traditional potters located in southern France on the Cote d’Azur, that the enthralling story of Picasso the ceramicist begins, the topic of the present essay. Picasso’s remarkably prolific clay adventure lasted some twenty-five years.
It was at the Nerolium in Vallauris that he met
