Royal Delft Museum presents: Picasso. Ceramic Magician

An exhibition about Picasso’s life as a ceramist and his ceramic work

Delft, October 3, 2023 – Royal Delft Museum, the factory museum for Delft Blue, opens the new and exclusive exhibition: Picasso. Ceramic Magician on Tuesday, October 10, 2023. Pablo Picasso was one of the greatest artists of the twentieth century and in the year that marks the 50th anniversary of his death and that this milestone is being celebrated throughout the Western world, the museum is presenting a unique selection from Picasso’s oeuvre with loans from various private collections and from Dutch museums. On the occasion of the exhibition, a book with the corresponding title about Picasso’s life as a ceramicist and his ceramic work has been published by W-Books. The exhibition can be seen at Royal Delft Museum from October 10, 2023 to May 19, 2024.

Picasso Celebration 1973-2023

In 2023, 50 exhibitions and events will be organized worldwide to commemorate Picasso. Royal Delft Museum adds an exhibition to this. Lennart Booij, art historian and guest curator: ‘No other artist in the twentieth century switched mediums so easily: from oil paint to wood or bronze, graphic techniques or glass and of course ceramics.’

Picasso. The All-rounder

Pablo Ruiz Picasso was born in 1881 in Malaga, Spain. He spent his working life mainly in France. Picasso developed from an impressionist painter to a ceramicist. The works have various influences because he never stuck to a path he had taken. Experiments and explorations continued to follow each other for the rest of his life: in style, in materials and methods. “The ceramic works provide insight into Picasso’s versatility as a ceramist and his entrepreneurial spirit because, in addition to unique specimens, he also developed various series,” adds Lennart Booij.

Lenders

Works were loaned for the exhibition by Kunstmuseum Den Haag, Museum de Fundatie, Design Museum Den Bosch, Keramiekmuseum Princessehof Leeuwarden and from the collections of Vanderheijden Van Tinteren / Moonen Nederland, Kitty Valkier Schreurs and John & Marine van Vlissingen Fine Arts. Jolanda van den Berg, director of Royal Delft Museum: ‘Thanks to the various loans, we can show ceramic works by Picasso in context that have rarely or never been shown before.’