VALLAURIS: Earthenware.
One important site of the ceramics revival in France, from the 40s onward, was Vallauris, a traditional center for the production of hand-made cooking pots and table ware since the eighteenth century:
With the industrialisation of ceramic production in large factories (Sarreguemine, Longchamp, etc.), the demand for the heavy and more fragile ‘terres vernissées’ declined, and many workshops closed-down; turning the place into a ghost town. Till newcomers arrived with new ideas and new life styles that contrasted with and puzzled the few remaining exponents of the old tradition.
In Vallauris, unlike in Saint-Amand and La Borne, the postwar ceramic revival was stimulated, in part, by domestic ceramics that offered Robert Picault a challenge for revolutionise the design and manufacture by craft means of cooking and table ware that could co-exist on the dining table without shame.
Thus, hand-painted cooking pots, dishes, plates, salad bowls, fruit bowls, goblets, coffee pots, pitchers, etc. formed the bulk of Picault's production, alongside vases. Painted in bright green enamels, enhanced by graffito motifs, Picault redefined the look of tableware; his work functioning equally well as decoration.
Situated on the attractive Côte-d’Azur, it attracted, as the war ended, recent graduates anxious to make a new start, away from big cities.
Tourists soon followed; providing a ready market for decorative wares and souvenirs and to engage in a national (and never repeated) passion for pottery.
The arrival of Picasso, in 1946, followed by Miro, Cocteau, Chagall, Ozenfant, Pignon [1951-54], and others (Léger in neighbouring Biot), encouraged experimentation; it increased the popularity of art ceramics ('poterie d'art') among the general public and established Vallauris as a popular tourist destination.
The large number of workshops available to buy or rent inexpensively - following their closure between the wars — when ‘terres vernissées’ had been supplanted by aluminium cooking utensils, and cheap and stronger factory-made dinner ware, etc. (‘faïences’ from Longchamp, Sarreguemines, etc.) — a number of graduates from art schools came to set up studios in Vallauris to re-invent themselves as potters, and to enjoy an easier and more relaxed Mediterranean way of life. Initially some shared a studio or trained with or worked with/for others before setting up on their own.
The first to arrive and set up in Vallauris, around 1920, was Louis Giraud; who brought Modernity in the form of Art Déco. His 'atelier' provided a training ground and an and experimental space for Alexander Kostanda and others.
Placide Saltalamacchia arrived about the same time from Sicily to produce 'terres vernissées' and witness their demise.
The 'new wave' to arrive, after the war, gave a new lease of life to many of the old factories that had produced 'terres vernissées', for which Vallauris was famous. They were Suzanne Douly (1936) and Georges Ramié (1938) (MADOURA), André Baud (1942), , Robert Picault (1946), Roger Capron (1946), Jean Derval (1947), Odette Gourju & Lyuba Naumovich [Le Grand Chêne] (1948), Alexandre Kostanda (1949), etc.
Whereas potters like Kostanda retained a studio mode of production; making no two pieces exactly alike, others adapted studio techniques to serial, semi-industrial production for the same mass market. In this way, they produced works that were affordable and popular, and that contributed to spread MODERNITY more widely among the general public.
This spread of Modernity through popular ceramics is a key contribution of Vallauris during the 50s and 60s.
Traditional craft techniques were used extensively in the turning and decoration of the works. Many pieces carry the label or the stamp 'fait main' (hand made) or tourné et décoré main' (hand turned and decorated) — without necessarily the addition of a signature — as this striking vase (below) that looks slip-cast, but was hand-turned and in which its classical form contrasts with a wild, 'lava'-type glaze:
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An early attempt at making a transition from traditional cooking ware to Modernity was attempted by Placide Saltalamacchia around 1945-50, in a work that stand outside anything previously seen:
However, this attempt by a producer of cooking ware in 'terres vernissées', remained a isolated attempt. Not supported by a coherent artistic vision, it only produced an 'idiolect': an eccentric and brave attempt at modernising his production; with a remarkable result that is strangely akin to 'Art Brut'. Unable to operate a transition to ceramic modernity by evolving his own distinctive style — unlike the potters recently arrived in Vallauris — Placide Saltalamacchia, who had set up his Aegitna studio in1920, working with traditional modes of craft production:
tried to reinvent himself by adopting some of the techniques (mould-making) and the stylistic attributes of the new collective brand that was emerging and that came to represent the 'VALLAURIS' brand in the popular imagination. In so doing, he made a considerable personal leap forward; as can be seen in those two works made some thirty years apart: shifting his production from traditional domestic 'terres vernissées' to modern decorative ceramics for the tourist and the home decoration market:
By adopting 'forme libre' [free form] and lava-type glazes, Aegitna's work blended with that of several other firms that adopted the same style in an attempt to catch the market.
We should note that in spite of the anonymity of these works just signed 'VALLAURIS', they represented a substantial proportion of the works produced and sold: in Vallauris, as well as in other parts of France: with labels suggesting that the work was 'of' the place where they were sold (as souvenirs).
We can follow, among others through the work of Marino (Le Vaucour) — a potter about whom very little is known — the transformations that led to the emergence of the 'VALLAURIS' style; in particular the rise of 'Écume de mer'; that emblematic (and so suitably named) glaze that became a true best seller and was made and sold by several firms.
VALLAURIS POP
The first ingredient of this new popular style was 'forme libre' — a modern sculptural form (more akin to fine art), and that radically deviated from conventional ceramic forms — the second was a smooth, runny and glossy glaze that, once it caught popular taste, was made readily available by the local ceramic supply shop the 'Hospied': to be experimented with.
Anatomy of an Experimentation:
It is difficult to imagine the impact such an object in an average living room during the 60s. Not so difficult when Rock 'n Roll was playing in the background...
Once finalised that 'extraordinary' vase inspired a number of variations that produced this series.
It is, perhaps, puzzling that Marino did not sign these pieces, but only incised the name 'Vallauris', or added a generic paper label 'Art Pottery. Vallauris'; although he signed the (earlier?) works decorated with Suprematist motifs. What can be said, however, is that these works could not have been easily mistaken for the work of another studio!
Accounts of Vallauris are incomplete as they stand, for they have neglected the vernacular side of its ceramic production; focusing, instead, on the 'star system'. It is unfortunate, for it is now too late to recover the information that has been lost.
WORKS, however, remain: as with the Jacques Ribéro vase that exudes an extraordinary quality (in body and glaze), although his name is all that remains; with no information. In the ceramic 'conversation' below, we can see the distance covered by Ribéro from traditional Mediterranean pottery to arrive at his own style, in this piece. But not enough work remains to get a picture of his 'oeuvre'.
The opportunity to collect also ramains, and, in the process, the scope to observe, compare and discover affinities that may suggest the same hand; as with these two vases, clearly from the same factory; displaying the same crispness of design and making:
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Alongside this vernacular, anonymous, popular ceramic production that brought Modernity to the masses, a number of factories — like that of Marius Giuge, Capron, later Picault (when he started producing tiles and acquired 25 employees)... — produced an easily identifiable range of wares that carried the potter's style and reputation.
To enable serial production in semi-industrial set ups, and to keep cost down, pieces were increasing moulded. 'Decoration (glazing and painting) still had to be carried out by hand; which justified the label 'fait main' or 'décoré main' as a selling point.
At the other end, studio potters like Madoura, Alexandre Kostanda, Dominique & Micheline Baudart, Fernande Kohler, Gustave Reynaud, Les Argonautes, Albert Thiry, Le Grand Chêne, and many others produced studio pieces at affordable prices whilst preserving their artistic integrity.
To the point that it can be said that Vallauris experimented with DEMOCRATIC CERAMICS or CERAMIC DEMOCRACY...
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