Exploring Picasso's Ceramic Works

Jeppe Curth 0:00

Welcome to the Collector's Edge for Nordic Art Partners . In today's episode , we will explore the work of one of the most iconic artists of all times , P pablo Picasso . Our focus today will be on one of his lesser-known elements of his working life his ceramics works . With me , as always , is our art expert , N nicholas Robinson . Let's get started .

Nicholas Robinson 0:32

We've all heard about it . Sometimes it's front-page news Important works of art are being sold for incredible sums of money . But can you get involved and become a part of the exclusive club yourself , and how do you get started while avoiding buying the wrong things ? That's exactly what this podcast is about . This is the Collector's Edge from Nordic Art Partners , a podcast for those of you interested in the mechanics of the art industry , want advice about putting money into art , or simply want to buy something for your walls , to beautify your surroundings . Whatever your objectives , it is possible to put money into art wisely , to be considered thoughtful and well informed in your choices and actions . Welcome to the art of collecting with an eye for curated beauty and practical value .

Jeppe Curth 1:28

Hi Nick .

Nicholas Robinson 1:29

Hi Jeppe , how are you doing ? Very well , thank you . How are you today ?

Jeppe Curth 1:33

I'm good . I'm good , I'm very excited we're going to talk about Picasso today , one of my all-time favourites , I guess for me it's the most iconic artist in the world .

Nicholas Robinson 1:44

Yes , I mean his reputation does rather precede him .

Jeppe Curth 1:49

Yeah , and I don't think he needs a big introduction because I think most people know him , but can you try anyway ?

Nicholas Robinson 1:58

Asolutely Well . As I mentioned , he's really considered , I suppose , the most iconic artist of all time , certainly of the 20th century . He was born in the late 19th century and started working beginning at the very turn of the 20th century . His first well-known works could be considered what's known as the Blue Period very sombre works , portraits infused with a very profound melancholy coinciding with a significant depression brought about by the death , the suicide death , of a friend of his . As he came out of this depression , the Rose period , much more cheerful , vibrant , certainly in palette and in tone , and a group of works characterized by portraits of harlequins , acrobats and various carnival performers . Already , this is just the first decade of the 20th century and we're already seeing great variety in his production and his output . Later in this decade , he went into what became known as his African period , inspired by ethnographic works , african sculptures and moving into the sort of proto-Cubist works of Demoiselle d'Avignon from 1907 . At the end of this decade , along with Georges Braque , invented Cubism , a very particular visual representation of ways of seeing meaning . Cubism was designed to show how uh an individual object uh viewed from multiple vantage points , how all of those varying angles could be represented on the picture plane simultaneously . So very complex , very um , highly theoretical way of painting , um . That was extremely misunderstood in the day and probably to some extent today as well . He went on to evolve cubism into what became known as synthetic cubism , incorporating newspaper fragments into his works . So these are really considered the first collage elements in modern art , in any art generally . He was the inventor of constructed sculpture lots of found objects being accumulated together , which came to be known as assemblage . He was a theatre designer , collaborating with Diaghilev in his famous Ballet Russe .

Nicholas Robinson 4:45

1920s , characterized by a classical period and also a time where his work overlapped closely with those of the surrealists . You know , his place in popular culture is also largely earned from his reputation , largely earned from his reputation , his outsized reputation as this cultural force , this creative genius , a mercurial character who became fabulously wealthy and kind of a law unto himself , his complicated relationships and romantic entanglements with various wives , mistresses , and romantic entanglements with various wives , mistresses , lovers , muses . The Marie Therese portraits are a very famous example of his work . Being inspired by a great love in his life , he famously painted Guernica . So , of course , not averse to painting works of extraordinary psychological intensity , depicting traumatic events drawn from current affairs and from life around , and then even at the end of his life , his musketeer paintings from the 1960s . So this is an artist who's continually reinventing himself , finding new ways to innovate new modes of expression , and you know , almost taken for granted , that some of the seminal modes of production of the 20th century have as their genesis Picasso .

Jeppe Curth 6:21

Well , I know you can keep on going , but today we're going to focus on his ceramics . Of course , there's many different aspects of his output . Can you take us through his early days of his venture into ceramics and maybe also what drew him into this medium ?

Nicholas Robinson 6:38

Yes , yes , of course , as you say , there's a lot to say about Picasso , and any given category can be can be um expanded upon in in enormous detail Uh , but today , as you say , we'll focus on on his ceramics ? Um , which is a very interesting uh subset of Picasso's working life ? Um , in 1946 , he was 1946 , he was traveling in the south of France with his lover , françoise Gillot , and she took him to a ceramics festival . This was a festival held annually in the small town of Villaurice , close to Antibes and Cannes , on the south coast of France , close to Antibes and Cannes , on the south coast of France . And this had been a traditional pottery center , probably even for 2,000 years , a place producing out of the local terracotta wine amphora for the Roman Empire .

Nicholas Robinson 7:39

And in Vélorice , there was a pottery workshop called the Madura Pottery , owned by the .

Nicholas Robinson 7:47

The proprietors , george and Suzanne Ramier and Francoise Gillot , introduced Picasso to these , to this couple Um . So Picasso visited their , their , their workshop , and became enamored of the types of things that they were making , the simplicity um , and just the sheer novelty of this very kind of different , humble medium that to him , represented a departure from that which he was more used to doing painting and sculpting , et cetera . So he he um , sort of inspired by what he was witnessing and in a very sort of relaxed vacation , um induced frame of mind , he asked to try um working at this , at this medium , modeling some clay , and became very delighted by the tactile qualities of the medium and all of the possibilities that he recognized that were inherent to it . So , um , this was his first experience with , with um , with ceramics , his first encounter with trying them for himself . And so in 1947 , the following year , he returned to Madura , and at this point he entered into a formal arrangement with the Ramillers to make pottery , in a kind of partnership with them .

Jeppe Curth 9:10

This formal arrangement is quite interesting . How did this fit into his production and work life and what inspired him to embark on working in this medium ?

Nicholas Robinson 9:19

Well , what inspired him ? I mean , this is an artist who has been , uh , even at this point , um was the greatest artist in the world , not only in the minds of the intelligentsia , um and the avant garde , but also amongst , uh , amongst the common man , I mean , in popular culture . Picasso was a household name , and there were not many artists who were household names Um . So so you might say that Picasso was already um sort of existing in this rarefied capacity and was , um , you know , used to rubbing shoulders with , with extremely wealthy people who were his patrons and collectors , and so the sort of the very high price and relative rarity of his paintings meant that most people would never be able to afford one or own one . And so the artist , with his very sort of , you know , picasso , was very aristocratic in his bearing , but he was also very sort of populist in a strange kind of way , too contrary , and he liked the idea of working in a medium that would be more accessible to the average person , a medium that would be more accessible to the average person . These were things that could be produced en masse and could be accessible to a much wider audience . And at this point in his life , because of the demands of his very high level painting career . You know , painting was taking a physical and emotional toll on him , and this was a very welcome departure to try something else , and Picasso invariably spent his summers in the south of France . So , as I alluded to a moment ago , he was in a much more relaxed frame of mind , and so there are very specific sort of connotations of leisureliness and pastime associated with his embracing of this medium .

Picasso's Journey Into Ceramics

Nicholas Robinson 11:31

To begin with , he had no experience at all of making ceramics , and so he wanted to familiarize himself with the methods that were necessary to make successful works in the medium . So , as an example , early on he was extremely surprised by the way that the colour of the glazes and the transparency of the different glazes would respond to being fired in the kiln and the way these colours and glazes would change . But he became extremely committed , largely through a sort of trial and error , to evolving this process and slowly over time as he practiced , he became very adept at selecting all of these correct glazes and quantities and procedures in order to achieve the very singular visions that he had for each piece . So that was I guess that's just a small um diversion about his , his process there , um , but the ceramics , fundamentally , were made in a few differing ways . Um , to begin with , there were , you know , rows and rows of sort of standardized forms in the workshop .

Nicholas Robinson 12:51

The Ramillers at Madura were producing bowls and vases and pictures and various simple , you know , folk shapes that had a largely utilitarian purpose . So the first thing that he would do other than practicing a little bit with molding it in his hands , he also took these pre-existing forms and he painted them , so basically taking shapes that were there already and essentially decorating them . And then the next thing that he did after that would be to model and sculpt something , and then he would paint and glaze it . And then the artisans of Madura would take this form , which I suppose ostensibly became a prototype , and they would painstakingly recreate for production , so working from a unique work and copying it so that it could be produced en masse in editions of varying sizes . Um and the additions that were produced um were uh , well , the small , the smallest of which was an edition of 25 and the largest of which uh was 500 , with various increments in between , including 100 , 200 , 300 , etc . So this was extremely appealing to him that he could make these things that could then be sold . Maybe it's a little bit of a stretch to call them sort of souvenirs for tourists , but he nonetheless realized that pottery could be produced on a scale that his paintings could not , and in the 1950s and 60s these pieces typically had a price of around of what would be the equivalent of around $100 per piece in today's money , of what would be the equivalent of around $100 per piece in today's money . So his ceramic series were far more financially accessible than all of his other artworks and anything he had made up to this point . And he also enjoyed the fact that there was a very utilitarian nature to the pottery , which he also understood , that made the art form much more appealing to the general public , maybe who would not understand the appeal of an abstract painting or the complexities of one of his portraits or Cubist paintings , but who could nonetheless fully appreciate the value of a beautifully decorated plate or picture .

Nicholas Robinson 15:21

And then the other main method that Picasso utilized in Mador was when he created original images in dry clay molds . So there would be these sort of pieces of dried clay and Picasso would engrave or etch or kind of carve out a design in these , in these um molds , um , and then , uh , they , these designs would then be transferred onto fresh uh wet clay um , where it would of course appear as a mirror image or a very uh precise reversal of his marks Um , and these works uh carry , um uh a specific mark , uh imprint , original to Picasso . So , anyway , there's various uh additions that that he made , and from starting in 1946 and finishing in 1971 , um , there are various signatures , stamps , markings that attest to a particular mold shape , a particular design , different serial numbers , et cetera . It's possible to research online to find pretty comprehensive guides to reading these marks , so we won't go into too many details about those . So , really , to summarize , it was a thing that Picasso could do sort of in his holiday spare time , if you like that he became very passionate about .

Nicholas Robinson 16:54

He made many unique works as well during these years , and the unique works became keepsakes for him .

Nicholas Robinson 17:02

They weren't sort of traded commercially like his paintings , but they had a degree of preciousness . He would retain them for himself , pieces that he loved . He would gift them to his family and friends , and also to the Ramillers , his collaborators and who also became his friends Um . So so there's this real passion project with making these Um and , I think , also a slightly contrarian attitude to the art world , um , he became very well aware that there were some risks attached to working in ceramics , to making these additions . His dealer of the time , the famous Parisian Daniel Kahnweiler . He was vehement that Picasso should not do this and very , very opposed to this shift in medium , do this Um , and very , very opposed to this shift in medium he was . He was absolutely convinced that the prolificacy um of of these items , these objects , would would completely erode Picasso's existing market , would um sort of debase and devalue uh the prices , the values that his um , his paintings , uh paintings , had already accrued . So you know , this was something that Picasso was really excited to do for a number of reasons .

Jeppe Curth 18:24

Okay , so this is how he made the ceramics and also the reason for the production , but what did he make exactly , and did his work in this medium follow or reflect the kinds of things he is making in his painting or sculpture works ?

Nicholas Robinson 18:40

Well , I mean , we have to remember that in common to all of these things produced by Picasso is Picasso himself , and obviously there were a number of motifs that would recur throughout Picasso's working life , irrespective of the medium in which he was working at any given time . So , with his ceramics , we can see that they are a really a fascinating blend of traditional pottery but also this kind of , you know , simple , local vernacular , melded to his unique artistic vision . Um , some , some of the things were inspired by Spanish folk ceramics , which actually actually placed a much higher emphasis on the decoration of the pieces than than actually the quality of the materials or the perfection of the finished object itself , and so the forms and the motifs were , uh , inspired by folk ceramics , uh , the visual vernacular of Spanish folk ceramics , and the motifs included faces , um , known as the visage works , uh , bullfighters , fish goats , books , bullfighters , fish , goats , other animals , I mean . Picasso was famed for his love of animals . I think , as I mentioned , he's got to a point where he was somewhat jaded , and his dealings with various protagonists of the art world , wealthy collectors , demanding sort of entitled people over many years had led him to become somewhat suspicious of people and human nature , and he found a certain kind of escape and simplicity in his relationship with animals . So this recurs a lot A sun motif , a sun god , and then oftentimes a sort of free form of paintings and patterns that resemble sort of feathers , different kinds of brushstrokes , where he's really just making abstract compositions with color and sometimes with incised forms , um , and then I guess , the the .

Nicholas Robinson 20:49

The other very popular category um category is owls , and in addition to his general love of animals , picasso had a particular fondness for owls . In the mid-1940s , working in Maduro , they came across an owl who had become injured , its leg and its claw was damaged , and they took it upon themselves to to bandage the owl's injury , to take care of it , and they eventually adopted the owl as a pet . So the owl is is is perhaps the most recurring motif um in Picasso's ceramics and and it's almost a category unto itself . And so he had these uh different painterly motifs and they were recreated on um things as various as plates and bowls Um .

Nicholas Robinson 21:47

But as his um , as his competence uh progressed , progressed and developed , developed , he came to produce much more complex forms , pictures and vases with different kinds of handles that added a great deal to their sort of sinuous sculptural qualities and , at their sort of apogee , these handles became incorporated in sort of biomorphic or zoomorphic forms , um , so that , let's say , the handles would be a surrogate for , uh , the limbs of a figure that he was depicting with this vessel , um , maybe the sort of attenuated neck of a particular picture form , uh would become the neck of a bird , um .

Nicholas Robinson 22:41

And so as his uh experience with ceramics developed , um , he increasingly experimented , experimented with the way uh , the three-dimensional surface of the form could actually change the perception of the two-dimensional surface of the form , could actually change the perception of the two-dimensional , two-dimensional patterns and designs that he was painting on the surface . So the different shadows , distortions , curvatures , um would , it would would work , uh , with a particular synergy with the , with the , with the paintings on the surface that became , you know , increasingly desired features that both sort of accentuated the form and the painting itself .

Jeppe Curth 23:22

So he made many of the same things in ceramics as he did in the paintings , absolutely .

Nicholas Robinson 23:27

I mean , like I said , the main sort of thrust , the main red thread here is Picasso himself . And Picasso is somebody who turned his hand to creating in all its forms all the time . Um , we've seen his innovations in painting . We've seen how he incorporated collage into painting for the first time . We've seen how he assembled found objects into sculpture assemblage . This is somebody who had an instinctive understanding for form and line and was able to work with , you know , extreme instinct and economy in order to make something out of anything or something even out of nothing . So when we look at Picasso's ceramics , we can see absolutely the same guiding hand , the same impetus , the same instinct , talent , creativity as we see in any other media that he produced .

Jeppe Curth 24:30

Okay , so what was it that prompted us to get involved with these Picasso ceramics works ?

Nicholas Robinson 24:35

looking and so , when you see this , humility of object , this earthy material , and you see it elevated with such deft markings . They're extremely , extremely desirable , seductive objects with a incredible inherent beauty . And I think that , um , you know , when you , when you consider that he was combining , sculpting the form , he was combining this with etching and engraving designs , he was utilising painting and glazing and fusing all of his ideologies about making work into this medium , I think that it's reasonable to consider these as a sort of a total artwork . Um , where he is , he is , um , you know , he is fusing all of these techniques into one object and and simultaneously fostering , you know , an entirely new direction for this ancient medium , for ceramic .

Nicholas Robinson 25:49

I mean , ceramics have been common to humanity for as long as anything else that humanity has made for itself to use hybrid physicality , um , and elevating it so that it is , it's a picture , but it's also a sculpture and it's also a painting , and it is all of these things in one object . You know nothing , uh , about this , um , uh , these very humble objects is , in fact , humble , so they are sort of pleasingly deceptive in this way . So that's really the first thing , and then the second thing that prompted us to really get involved was the fact that they seemed to be extremely affordable relative to other things that one could acquire for similar amounts of money , certainly by Picasso and also by other very noted , highly regarded , reputable artists of the 20th century . There appeared to be a significant undervaluing of Picasso ceramics .

Jeppe Curth 27:12

Thank you

Picasso's Ceramic Works

Jeppe Curth 27:13

, nick . So for this episode we have tried to put in some facts together about Picasso . Could you please give it a go ?

Nicholas Robinson 27:24

Yes , absolutely . I guess this sort of speaks to you know , you asked what prompted us to get involved and it's very easy for me to say , you know they seem undervalued , but I guess I guess this uh , this research uh , and this data , um underscores one of the key reasons why we believe that to be the case . So these are the , these are the statistics that we have put together to illustrate this point Um . So during Picasso's lifetime , um illustrate this point Um . So during Picasso's lifetime , um , and his working life spanned from 1900 more or less until 1973 . So during this lifetime , he made 13,500 paintings , uh , the record price for which is $179,500,000 . And he made 12,000 drawings , the record price for which for one of which is $14 million . Um , he made 180,000 addition to prints , the record price for which is $5.2 million . And um , when we say in addition to prints , we talk about his , about his lithographs , his engravings , his etchings . All of these would be considered an edition of print , any image that he made that could be then reproduced . So these are the numbers attached to . These are the more commonly associated things with Picasso .

Nicholas Robinson 28:53

But in his ceramic work , picasso made only 4,000 unique ceramic works , and a unique work means something that Picasso made with his own hand and of which there exists only one .

Nicholas Robinson 29:09

So there's 4,000 of these and the record price is 3.9 million .

Nicholas Robinson 29:14

And he made 120,000 edition ceramics , the record for which is 1.9 million , and between 1946 and 71 , picasso designed 633 different ceramic editions , additions , and that may include , for example , there's a , there's a , a , a body form that he shaped , um , which is a uh , uh , uh . It's a vase , has a very broad foot that kind of looks like , you know , bird feet , or can be a sort of a stylized stand in for bird feet , and the sort of bulbous body , uh , with a certain shape , uh , of the neck , um is something that he used , uh to to paint on to depict an owl , and he used this standardized owl form , if we can call it that , and he painted numerous different designs on this . So there are several different owls , all of which have the same fundamental body shape , but different , different paintings to depict the owl . So so these permutations and combination combinations would also be in this 120 000 quantity of addition ceramics so picasso made 4000 unique ceramic works , which is less than the output number of his other medias .

Jeppe Curth 30:39

Right , why is it , do you think , that they gain so much in popularity ?

Nicholas Robinson 30:45

Well , I think that well , I mean , they're Picassos and obviously it's . The Picasso market in all its its forms is really an industry unto itself . There are so many examples that have been bought and sold consistently for decades , so they form a very well-established market . They sell certainly as well in the prints . Uh , you know , multiple examples of these works sell all the time . So over time it's very possible to collate a set of data and a sort of comprehensive overview as to how any one given example has traded . So not only do we have a trajectory of Picasso's price and value performance as it , as it unfolds over time , um , we see all of these things um forming a subset of the overall art market , to the extent that the Picasso market often is considered somewhat of a bellwether or barometer for the performance of the art market as a whole . So it's a little bit like , you know , in an art sense , the gold standard . So that's one reason why it's a very sort of sensible , safe , secure thing to be involved in All of the data that we can rely upon to know what it is we're getting involved with . And then the the sort of second main thing is the fact that his ceramics have been perceived rather differently than these other aspects of his output . And when you know , you consider all of the points that we've made up to now in this , in this broadcast , it starts to make less and less sense why the ceramics would be sort of relegated to a lesser tier of value and a lesser tier of collecting desirability , um . And that is changing Um , firstly , because of course there are lots of people that recognize the opportunity with something that has been um , not appreciated and therefore valued in the way that they think it should have been . Um . But more importantly , there's been a very key shift in the perception of materiality and how important materiality is in artistic production .

Nicholas Robinson 33:20

You know there used to be a view , a prevailing opinion , that considered painting to be the very sort of apogée of artistic output . It was the highest ranking thing in all the echelons of art . Alongside that you would have sculpture and then you would have drawings and prints . And in recent years photography has inserted itself into this canon . And again , you know , things like uniqueness , edition , size , whatever has a bearing on , on price and value , um .

Nicholas Robinson 33:59

But traditionally ceramics was not considered as an artistic medium or a medium of high art at all .

Nicholas Robinson 34:06

It was something that was associated with craft , with hobbies , with pastimes , with hobbies with pastimes , um , it was along with ceramics , uh , and textiles and whatever else , um , it was something that that you know , that perhaps women did on on the weekend , um , and so it suffered a lot , um , by these sorts of , um , pejorative connotations . So , as we look at these things today , you know we can see a lot of work in the modern and contemporary art field that once upon a time used to suffer by its association with these lesser materials . Nowadays , what we do is we interrog , interrogate the object , we interrogate the quality , the originality , the intentionality of the maker , how that maker and their work fits into their , uh , their sort of milieu , um , and so the the fact that something is sort of paint on canvas or paint on clay matters enormously less than it used to , and that also creates obviously a very interesting thing for us to uh investigate further , are they today seen as a more stable thing in a blue chip category ?

Nicholas Robinson 35:27

Well , yes , I mean , I think they're , they're evolving into that .

Nicholas Robinson 35:31

Um , I still believe that their prices are so much less than some of the other things , uh , and yet , when you you know objectively , when you assess them just as pure objects on their own artistic merits , this , this makes no sense .

Nicholas Robinson 35:45

Um , we can see , in the last few years there have been um some designated auctions , um solely for Picasso ceramics . It used to be that you would have painting auctions , you would have a modern art auction , a contemporary art auction , you would have print auctions . Now there are entire auctions uh devoted to to Picasso ceramics . So you can see that there is um uh , an increasingly established subset of the market that is devoted to this . So that obviously indicates an evolving category that some of the major industry protagonists are devoting time and resources to . So there's a reason why they do that because it's a growth field , and I think that it's an area that has a great deal of appeal because it still functions on multiple levels , and by that I mean there are . There's a great variety in price and aesthetic , which creates many um different entry points financially to for people to be , to be able to get involved in it and to be able to collect at you know , whatever level their budgets allow for .

Jeppe Curth 37:04

Thank you , Nick . Well , we have acquired a large number of Picasso ceramics over the recent year and we also placed numbers of important works in collections . When we have done that , we have also presented the collectors with quite a comprehensive data set and report . Could you maybe try to explain the process to lead us to recommending sources and buying these ceramic works ?

Nicholas Robinson 37:30

Yes , well , obviously , I've just mentioned the reasons that prompted us to start looking into this originally . The reasons that prompted us to start looking into this originally , um , and I , and I think a lot of the works that we've been involved with , I should clarify , have been , have been unique works which , which you know for , for the absence of doubt is , is a is a Picasso artwork , sculpted and painted artwork , that that just happens to be made from clay . So so , obviously , that that just happens to be made from clay . So so , obviously , um , there's a certain preciousness in any unique thing that comes from the hand of Picasso . So that was the first thing , that that we understood that to get a , a unique Picasso , in any other media , um would be much more expensive by a factor of many times , and so there was a sense of opportunity , firstly , um that they were so much cheaper relative to other Picasso works , um , or indeed other works by artists of a similarly high status , um , so , so the fact that that these were Picasso works was tremendously attractive to us , of course , um , and when we started to try and think about them in this contextual way , um vis-a-vis other things in the market , it was not unreasonable , or at least we thought it was not unreasonable to assume that these things would have greater price equivalency with similar or related things in the future . Um . So once , once we come to that conclusion that that we were comfortable with , confident with um uh , enabling us to sort of move , move forward with , we look at other things like the addition size , which of course speaks to scarcity . It's obviously somewhat of a self-explanatory thing that something that exists in addition of 25 would invariably have greater value than something that exists in addition of 500 , where there are 499 other examples .

Nicholas Robinson 39:52

And then we get into things like the complexity of form . When Picasso , his methodology and his technique and his ability , um , we can see increased complexity , we can see an increased synergy between the sculpted form and the painted surface working together to create an overall design um of incredible sophistication . Um . So something that has those attributes would likely um have greater value than uh . Simply a plate with a heavily stylized sort of cursory graphic of a fish . Um , you know there's one is is a much more developed artwork than another Um . And then obviously we start to look at things like the marks that I explained , um , the stamps and signature , and various marks and combinations of marks that tell us when something was made um and authenticates it Um , and I think it's .

Nicholas Robinson 41:00

It's also important to note that you know , let's say you have an , a 500 numbered edition of a of a Picasso ceramic . It is not the case that the workshop simply knocked out 500 of these things and put them on a shelf to gather dust until somebody stumbled in to buy one Um , so , uh , it is the case that number one of 500 can be many , many years older than number 450 of the same design . So you know , you have , you have um , different values um , within , like essentially the same , the same object , or the same set of objects Um . And then , along with that , we have things like condition , which you know , where we investigate the patina , we investigate whether the object is and and , and I should say that these objects , you know there's not a , there's not such a preciousness to the object themselves . There's a real inherent earthiness in the materiality . There are naturally occurring flaws and you know sort of accidents that happen in the , in the firing . These are not condition issues , these are sort of innate to the materiality and to the process .

Nicholas Robinson 42:15

Um , things that I'm talking about are perhaps in unglazed or biscuit , finished works , maybe there's an accumulation of patina from uh oil , from people's hands and fingers , handling them over time , whether some of the glazes have been rubbed off . You know , all of these things can be inspected and sort of attested to and have a bearing on the value . So this is the other thing that we look at . You know , after we examine the form and we decide if the sort , we can , you know , validate the object and determine if it's , if its condition is stable and good enough to merit the , the price that's being asked for it it was this that determined our decision to commit time and resource to get involved in the piqueso ceramic work .

Nicholas Robinson 43:14

I mean all of these factors really , um , where , where we could see there was , there was , you know , a real merit to , to , to , to embracing it as as a part of our practice , um , something we could be passionate about , and also that we could believe in um from a very uh rational um set of criteria and perspective . Um , but I think , I think really there's also a certain you know , we've been doing this for a long time . We've seen lots of different things come and go . We've seen um trends evolve and develop and stay the course , and you know nothing about Picasso is transient or ephemeral Um and and and and . When there's an entire field of Picasso productivity that that feels like it has a lot of potential , then there's there's a sort of an instinctive component to feeling this and following this In .

Nicholas Robinson 44:10

In recent years we've seen you know I mentioned that Picasso kept a lot of the unique ceramics for himself , gave them to family and friends . We gave many of them to his daughter , marina Picasso . Um , and there were there have been some auction sales of works from her collection . So we've got we've got unique Picasso works and unique Picasso works that have a uh , a provenance that includes Pablo Picasso and then a direct lineage to his daughter . I mean , this is a , this is a compelling object with a fantastic history . Um , so it was , you know , things like this opportunity or these opportunities , um , allied with the other information that we were evaluating , that that really convinced us that , that this was something that we really , really wanted to to become involved

Picasso Ceramic Pricing and Collection Advice

Nicholas Robinson 45:09

with .

Jeppe Curth 45:09

So , nick , what are the prices on these Picasso ceramics works ? I know it's a big variety of sizes and unique and not unique , but if we take like a big edition , 500 edition works and what would the price be on this ?

Nicholas Robinson 45:24

uh , it's a good question . Uh , it's a little bit like asking how long is a piece of string , um , but uh , I'll try and answer . Um , there are , there are very many , as I mentioned , there's more than 600 different uh ceramic 633 . And some of them are relatively unimpressive , if I may say , and some of them are magnificent , I suppose you could say . If we boil down the question to the basics , the cheapest Picasso ceramic that one could feasibly buy is a few thousand dollars , somewhere under $5,000 . Um , it wasn't so long ago that one could get a very simple little vase or plate , quite basic and not hugely exciting , but one could still get this for 1,500 , $2,000 euros . Um , perhaps that's slightly ambitious . Now . The prices continue to change and grow all the time , um , and you know it's still not a fully mature market , so it's evolving . Um , so this would be , I suppose , the entry point .

Nicholas Robinson 46:34

Um , but you know , not all additions of 500 works were created equally either , to answer your other question . So you know , as an example , there are some of the owls that were produced in editions of 500 , you know , they can be 50 , $60,000 , where a small plate , also from an edition of 500 could be maybe $6,000 . So again , it depends on how captivating , how enticing the imagery , how sought after it becomes . You know a lot of Picasso collectors ceramic collectors become very knowledgeable as to the different . You know times that he spent in Valois and the relationships that he was in the vagaries of his life and some of these works . You know times that he spent in Valois and the relationships that he was in the vagaries of his life and some of these works . You know they have particular anecdotes attached to them that enhance their legend .

Nicholas Robinson 47:29

Um so so you know the . The . The prices can vary accordingly , um , depending on the renown that these particular objects have in the eyes of the market . You can spend up to . You know you can spend up to three or four hundred thousand dollars on an edition work if it's one of 25 , for instance .

Jeppe Curth 47:51

So maybe a better question would be what kind of work would be good to get ? Maybe also , what kind of work would you get ?

Nicholas Robinson 48:00

Well , that's a really good question . I think really the guiding principle for that kind of question is , you know , buy the best thing that you can . And as sort of throw away a comment as that is , I can qualify that by saying that if you can get something that's unique , then that , of course , qualitatively is is a meaningful thing unto itself , almost irrespective of of what it looks like . Um , so that's that's the first thing . Um , then I think that you know , one should look to the things that maybe one can feel , uh , picasso's real love in making , and you know it's easy to to .

Nicholas Robinson 48:43

To refer back to the owls , I really have a strong uh appreciation for those . It feels like he , he , there's , there's a very sort of tender , loving quality in the way that they are made and depicted , um , the sweetness to them , if you like . Um , that I think is is fantastic . Um , and they also , you know , they have that combination of form and painted surface that really works well together . I would much rather have a vessel , um like a vase or a picture , because it has a certain sculptural three-dimensionality . Um , that I suppose is is better than a plate , which is just essentially a flat surface . So , you know , you can sort of see for yourself , which are perhaps a little more obviously appealing than others .

Jeppe Curth 49:32

Thanks , Nick , and for anybody that maybe are new to Picasso ceramic works where to start exploring his work and where can you buy them ?

Nicholas Robinson 49:44

you can buy them quite easily . I mean you can look on online and you can find them there in all the usual art marketplace venues . Christie's , as I mentioned , has designated Picasso ceramic auctions with somewhat regularly . So one just has to log on to their website and one can look at all of the catalogs online , the various essays that are produced to support the more significant pieces . You can type in the name of a piece if you see something you like , also in the Christie's search box , and it will bring up other examples that Christie's themselves have sold and the prices that they have achieved .

Nicholas Robinson 50:32

Sotheby's . You can also do this for Picasso ceramics or for any artwork for that matter . So even if you don't have expensive subscriptions to different search databases , you can use the online resources of the auction houses to do some of this cursory research yourself . And I think the other thing that I think is very interesting about Picasso's work . I mean you can maybe buy a drawing let's say for $50,000 , a Picasso drawing . You can actually get quite a nice number of ceramics for that same amount of money . So it would actually be possible to get some diversity in Picasso's range of motifs so that you could in fact develop somewhat of a coherent , cohesive mini collection of Picasso's , whereby you would end up with multiple things instead of just one thing for that same same sum of money .

Picasso Ceramics Discussion and Recommendations

Jeppe Curth 51:32

Thank you , nick . Normally now I will . I would ask you if you have anything to add , but I think we have already given a very comprehensive insight on the Picasso ceramics , so I don't want to . I want to spare you today and just thank you for sharing all your knowledge once again , thanks , jeppe .

Nicholas Robinson 51:50

It's really a pleasure . It's a really interesting field and I really can't recommend it highly enough .

Jeppe Curth 51:56

So if you have any questions , you want to know more about picasso , you can always reach us on info at nordic art partnerscom and hope to hear you back soon , thanks bye .