Picasso’s Wish

Today we are making Picasso’s wish our own, and are once again displaying all of the sixteen pieces donated alongside the museum’s historical ceramic collection.

This highlights Picasso’s knowledge of the technique and symbolism of traditional ceramics, as well as how he expressed his ideas and iconographic repertoire in clay, based on forms and processes from the past, as a further element of his artistic output.

Between the objects on display there runs a connecting thread that starts with Picasso as an artist who sees, assimilates, and creates his own works, beginning by using what he finds in tradition. The result is the work of a creator open to the insights of the artists and craftsmen who preceded him.

They show how the artist's understanding of these traditional ceramic pieces would have a profound impact on his creativity. Taking inspiration from what an anonymous master potter did many centuries earlier, he would create a new imaginary that would not only come across clearly in pottery, but would in some way influence his entire oeuvre.