Pichet tête carrée

Pichet tete carree (A.R. 223) Pitcher is a Picasso ceramic pitcher, catalogued A.R. 223 in Alain Ramié's reference on the edited ceramics, conceived in 1953. It comes from the numbered edition of 300 produced at the Madoura pottery in Vallauris.

Picasso's ceramics were made in collaboration with the artisans of the Madoura workshop, who translated his painted and modelled originals into limited editions under his supervision. Each authorised example was fired and finished at Madoura in Vallauris and carries the workshop's marks, bridging the worlds of fine art and the potter's craft that Picasso so admired.

In Pichet tete carree (A.R. 223) Pitcher Picasso takes up the stylised head, reduced to a few essential marks. Like all of the Madoura editions, the piece translates a subject from his painting and drawing into three dimensions, where the ceramic surface and the thrown form become part of the composition. Picasso's ceramics remain among the most accessible points of entry into his late work, prized for uniting a major twentieth-century hand with the everyday language of the potter.