Pablo Picasso was always highly interested in ceramics, considered by him a means of artistic expression on the same level as sculpture, painting, graphics.
At the Madoura pottery, in Vallauris, he devoted himself to clay-working for twenty-five years, from 1946 to 1971, and his output comprises thousands of unique pieces.
The book surveys this exceptional artistic chapter of the great Spanish Master through fifty unique ceramic pieces from the Musée national Picasso-Paris – an exceptional loan, which represents almost the half of the great ceramic collection of the museum – exhibited with a selection of specimens held by Museo Internazionale delle Ceramiche in Faenza, direct sources of inspiration for him: the classical black-figure and red-figure ceramic style, bucchero vases from Etruria, Spanish and Italian popular pottery, incised pottery from Italian Quattrocento and specimens of Mediterranean origins painted with animals, without forgetting Mesoamerican ceramic vessels.

The exhibition is part of “Picasso-Méditerranée” project, an international cultural initiative occurring between 2017 and 2019. The programme involves over seventy cultural institutions and includes initiatives developed around the “stubbornly Mediterranean” works by Pablo Picasso. The tour across the places of Picasso’s art, promoted by Musée national Picasso-Paris, grants an unusual cultural experience with the aim to strengthen the ties between the Mediterranean shores.

Faenza, MIC, November 2019 - April 2020