Gilbert Portanier - Very Bottle-shaped With Multi-colored Decoration - Vallauris - Cannes

Ref. PORTA39Gilbert PORTANIERCannes, September 28, 1926 - August 15, 2023"Large "bottle" shaped vase with multicolored decorationCeramic, height: 46.5cm1993Signed and dated on the baseProvenance:- private collection, Germany (acquired directly from the artist)Biography:Gilbert Portanier attended secondary school on the French Riviera. Around the age of 17, he felt a taste for the arts growing within him. In 1945, he left for Paris to study architecture at the ENSBA. He quickly turned to painting and drawing, which he would soon study on his own. In 1948, after a stay in Brussels, he returned to the French Riviera where, during a visit to Vallauris, he discovered the world of ceramics and met Picasso. In 1949, he created, with his friends Albert Diato and Francine Del Pierre, a small workshop, which they call "The Triptych", where they begin together the self-taught apprenticeship of ceramics. In 1954, he moved into a traditional pottery where he would have large workshops, finding a mythical place of ceramics where all the possibilities of a still virgin art were offered to him. He learned the multiple techniques associated with it and created his own figurative, abstract, suggestive language, materialized by a versatile graphic design of great freedom. His color palette betrays by its richness and intensity the sensitivity of the painter. For Portanier, ceramics is a way of translating feelings, emotions, the pleasures of life. He is a colorist and a connoisseur of enamel, just as a virtuoso of drawing. In 2018, creation of the Gilbert Portanier Foundation located at 8 Chemin des Potiers in Vallauris. From 1964, Gilbert Portanier was in contact with the German porcelain maker Rosenthal, for whom he would soon create very original models (where we find his mark) which will enjoy great international success. From 1966 to 2009, he exhibited regularly in the Rosenthal Studio-Häuser in Hamburg, Bochum, Dortmund, Cologne, Mannheim, Stuttgart, Paris, Milan, Geneva, Amsterdam... From the 1950s, Gilbert Portanier exploited the play of mattness and shine by contrasting a matte enamel, on which he placed his decoration, and glossy colored enamels. In the 1980s, he abandoned white enamel and deepened the work of oxides by placing them freely on a white paste which highlights them. Today, Gilbert Portanier is still in this same century-old pottery in the center of Vallauris where he works with the same passion and enthusiasm. Gilbert Portanier died at his home on August 15, 2023 at the age of 96. Some awards and distinctions: 1966: Medal Gold Medal of the International Ceramics Exhibition, BrusselsGrand Prix of the International Ceramics Biennial, Faenza. (In 1966, the winners of the Premio Faenza - Grand Prix - were Wilhelm and Elly Kuch! Not clear...)Gold Medal of the Munich Fair1982: Grand Prix of the International Ceramics Biennial, Vallauris2013: Knight of the Order of Arts and LettersSome notable exhibitions:1954: Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg1963: Kunstgewerbe Museum (now Museum für Angewandte Kunst), Cologne1964: Museum am Ostwall, DortmundKarl Ernst Osthaus Museum, Hagen1985: Retrospective at the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg1998: Retrospective at the Musée national de céramique, Sèvres1999: Retrospective at the Musée d'art moderne, TroyesRetrospective at the Musée municipal de la céramique et d'art modern, Vallauris2006: Chapel of Mercy, VallaurisPeter Siemssen Stiftung, Ratzbek (Lübeck)Porzellan Museum, Selb2009:Keramion Stiftung, Frechen (Cologne)Peter Siemssen Stiftung, Ratzbek (Lübeck)2021: Fraeylema Schlochteren Netherlands