Picasso: The Challenge of Ceramics

This book explores the great interest that Pablo Picasso had in ceramics, which he certainly didn''t consider a minor art, but a means of artistic expression in its own right, like sculpture, painting and graphics. In Vallauris, at the Madoura ceramic laboratories, Picasso dedicated himself to working clay for a period of 25 years, from 1946 to 1971, producing thousands of unique pieces.

This volume retraces this exceptional chapter of the Picasso''s art, through 50 ceramics from the Picasso of the Musée National Picasso in Paris - a core of inestimable value, which represents almost half of the museum''s large collection - placed in a fertile and unprecedented dialogue with the direct sources of his inspiration: classic ceramics with red and black figures, the Etruscan buccheri, Spanish and Italian popular ceramics, 15th century Italian graffiti, and examples of the Mediterranean area with iconographies of fish, fantastic animals, owls and birds, as well as terracottas from Mesoamerican cultures. A chapter is dedicated to the relationship between Picasso and Faenza through unpublished documents from the historical archive of the MIC, and to the historical video by Luciano Emmer of 1954 (Picasso a Vallauris).

Text in English and Italian.