Exposition Vallauris 55

(After) Pablo Picasso (1881 – 1973, Spain) “Exposition Vallauris 55”- Reduced version of the original 1955 linoleum cut poster for the French town’s ceramics art exhibition. This work of art is a plate-signed offset lithograph on paper that measures 12 x 9 inches. The abstract cubist piece has been double matted and placed in a 16.25 x 12.25-inch black frame. Featured in this playful design is Picasso’s creation of a plate motif with lettering forming eyes, a nose and mouth to make a joyful face in which he used beautiful beige and brown colors.

Picasso created ceramics at a studio in Vallauris over a period of several years and every year from 1951 to 1964, he designed at least one original poster advertising the expositions of fine clay and pottery from the Riviera town near Cannes in the South of France. In 1959, printer Mourlot Freres in Paris created a series of lithographs ("Affiches Originales") of reduced size versions of posters by the contemporary masters of the time. This image is referenced in the book by Fernand Mourlot, “Art in Posters: The Complete Original Posters of Braque, Chagall, Dufy, Léger, Matisse, Miró, Picasso” (1959); "Les Affiches Originales des Maitres de l'Ecole de Paris”; Czwiklitzer 17; Bloch 1268; MMA 127; Geiser/Baer 1032.B