The Unexpected

Picasso fell in love with ceramics on a summer vacation, when he squeezed raw clay into the shape of a faun’s head and two bulls as he visited a ceramic workshop in the South of France. He went on to make more than 4,000 works in clay, some witty, some erotic, some inventively spatial. Many of the most prominent European modernist artists, including Miró, Léger, and Chagall, as well as Braque, Dufy, and Cocteau, were likewise fascinated by the capabilities of clay, and produced substantial bodies of work that complemented and even extended their styles and methods in painting or sculpture.
This ceramic output has been little considered in tbe pages of art
history. Presented here, for the first time, are ceramic works by 23 twentieth-century European artists, all from the extensive collection of artists’ pottery at the Museum Het Kruithuis in the Netherlands—the only such collection in the world.
The works are placed in context in four essays and a wealth of superb illustrations. In addition to the modernists, the work of Karel Appel, Asger Jorn, and other members of the postwar COBRA movement is examined, and that of contemporary artists such as Mimmo Paladino and A. R. Penck. Janet Koplos considers the place of ceramics in the oeuvres of these artists, the ways in which it relates to their better-known painting or sculpture, and how they exploit the particular qualities of the medium. Max Borka shows how the dynamic presence of Picasso rejuvenated the French pottery town of Vallauris. Willemijn Stokvis explores the role pottery played in COBRA art and how perfectly the medium suited the emotional directness of the movement. Finally, Jos Poodt visits contemporary studios and highlights the ceramic activities of a number of artists currently working in this field.
The Unexpected: Artists' Ceramics of the Twentieth Century is published to accompany an international traveling exhibition.