This was the telling phrase with which Picasso explained his work at Vallauris to his friend and refined Ministry of Culture, André Malraux. In 1946, engraver Louis Fort had accompanied Picasso to visit the annual exhibition of the potters of Vallauris (Cannes) where his attention was attracted by the works of the Madoura pottery co-founded by Suzanne and Georges Ramié. Madoura was an acronym for “Maison Douly Ramié”; in fact before marrying Georges, Suzanne had produced her own ceramics. The fact that an artist such as Picasso, over 60, rich and famous at that time, decided to make his first foray into an unknown and all things considered “poor” artistic medium would be inconceivable were it not for his extraordinary vitality and the renowned intellectual curiosity that has always been a distinctive feature of his activity.

Already in the early years of the 20th century, the study of African art, albeit shorn of any religious significance and restricted to exterior appearance and to the pure aesthetics of the planes and volumes, had triggered the birth of the Cubist movement, embodied in Picasso’s seminal masterpiece of 1907, known as “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon”. Wheel-turned, fired and painted pottery is, in fact, one of the most ancient forms of art of which considerable traces remain and, perhaps for this reason, exerted a comprehensible fascination on the great artist. During his first meeting with the Ramiés, Picasso modelled three clay pieces, leaving these to be fired at the factory. A year later, Picasso returned to Vallauris with his new companion, Françoise Gilot, and was so delighted with his three earlier ceramic experiments that he decided to dedicate himself to this new medium. Obviously, he used traditional techniques only partly, inventing new solutions such as casting of the clay in specifically-designed moulds, similarly to the casting of bronze, or employed discarded materials such as shards of pots, objects and broken bricks to bring to life new objects, using the so-called “pâtes blanches”, i.e. unglazed ceramics with relief decorations. He personally designed the new shapes forged by his imagination which were then thrown by Jules Agard, the potter of the atelier, and subsequently decorated by Picasso.
Between 1946 and 1971, Picasso produced around four thousand original works using almost his entire personal iconographic repertory, such as fauns and nymphs, bull-fighting scenes, women, owls, birds, fish and caricature-type faces. Although, in most cases, he decorated the objects with a few brushstrokes, he succeeded in creating works of great fascination and artistic worth. Each year, Picasso allowed the ceramists and painters of the Madoura atelier to reproduce some 20/30 models of his entire ceramics production, under the strict control of the Ramiés, with editions of from 25 to 500 numbered examples. The years spent at Vallauris had a great impact on the artist’s life, marked by the birth of his children Claude and Paloma, the abandonment of Françoise (the only woman to leave Picasso and not vice versa) and his meeting with his last great love, Jacqueline Roque, a pottery assistant at Madoura, who he married in 1961 and who remained with him until his death (1973).

Today’s market is still very receptive to the works of the great Spanish maestro, as confirmed by the record figure of €960,000 paid for a vase titled “Grand vase aux femmes voilées” (Large Vase with Veiled Women) created in May 1950. However, even without reaching these record figures, the marketability of these ceramics remains very high. Bolaffi has recently sold, with great success, a fine collection of pitchers, tiles and plates at more than three times their starting price. Objects purchased personally by the collector each summer during the 1960s when holidaying on the Côte D’Azur. He had acquired a certain familiarity with Georges Ramié and still remembers the emotion of when, sitting with him in a bistrot, he unexpectedly heard him say: “Pablo, come here, let me introduce a friend!”

By Gianfranco Fina