Canard pique-fleurs (A.R. 117)

‘With ceramics the artist can demonstrate his creativity and the strength of his invention like in a painting, while additionally saving the spontaneous result born physically, materially from his hands' (Picasso quoted in F. Mathey, ‘La céramique des peintres’, Métiers d'art, October 1981, p. 110).

The present work bears the signs of Picasso’s intrepid creativity, when after the Second World War he turned to ceramics, transferring the whimsical world of his pictures and sculptures onto the shapes and vessels of Provençal pottery. Conceived in 1951, Canard pique-fleurs is a sophisticated example of Picasso’s masterful skill in utilising an increasingly complex form of the pitcher to explore the both the femme motif; and the animal form: both popular subjects for the artist. He has whimsically incorporated apertures in the body of the anthropomorphic avian woman.

This work employs mark-making, sgraffito, and simple brushstrokes to the surface creating eyebrows, the eyes, nose and mouth as well as the woman’s hand. Here, Picasso succeeds in conveying not only his unbounding imagination but also emphasises the technical accomplishment of creating such a complex and monumental ceramic piece.

The present work has remained in the same important private Italian collection since the present owner's father purchased it in the early 1960s.
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