Details
The image
A plate seen from above, its rim a ring and its centre filled with a simplified animal or face, the glaze suggested by a few flat tones. The photograph is printed close, so the object fills the sheet and the lettering sits small beneath it.
Where it comes from
The poster commemorates the 1948 exhibition of Pablo Picasso’s ceramics, made in the years when he was working in the workshops of the south of France. Ceramics became a serious medium for painters after the war: the materials were cheap, the results could be made quickly and a plate could carry a drawing as well as a canvas could. Exhibitions of that work produced posters that treated a pot as a picture, one object, centred, lit from above and the format has been used for craft exhibitions ever since.
On the wall
It behaves like a photograph of an object, which makes it easy to live with: a kitchen, a study or a corner beside a shelf. Because the composition is circular and centred, it works on a small wall as well as a large one. In a group it should be the quietest piece.
In company
For a larger wall, the Vintage collection supplies the rest of the arrangement.Avoid hanging it beside strong graphic work, the glaze colours need calm around them.
