Paul Quéré Large, Free-form Ceramic Vase, Signed In Vallauris, 1960, Glazed, 52 Cm, Vintage Design

A significant glazed ceramic sculptural vase signed “Le Minotaure” and bearing the monogram of Paul Quéré and Ariane Mathieu’s studio on the base. A Provençal piece from the 1960s, created within the context of modern ceramics in Vallauris and the French Riviera.

A large piece, 52 cm tall, constructed as a true sculptural form. The vase rests on a narrow cylindrical foot, widens into a substantial ovoid body, and extends into a long conical neck that ends in a flared rim. This succession of volumes gives the piece a highly architectural silhouette, somewhere between a vase, a sculpture, and a design object.

The surface is entirely hand-worked. The glaze blends black, brown, cream, gray, and off-white into a deliberately irregular texture, punctuated by speckles, indentations, scratches, and firing effects. The main decoration forms a wide frieze winding around the body. It combines triangles, diamonds, radiating shapes, points, and elements that evoke, in turn, leaves, fish, birds, insects, or masks. The composition deliberately straddles the line between abstraction and figuration.

The black outlines strongly define the various motifs, like an ink drawing applied directly to the clay. The pale blue, green, turquoise, ochre, brown, and red glazes add highly controlled splashes of color. Small touches of cobalt blue and red add rhythm to the design and contrast with the black and cream mineral background.

Here, Paul Quéré uses the entire volume as a pictorial surface. The vase must be viewed from multiple angles; the frieze continuously transforms around the body, and each side features a different composition.

Paul Quéré, born in 1931 and died in 1993, developed a multifaceted body of work combining ceramics, painting, poetry, and writing. Having lived in Provence for many years, he worked with Ariane Mathieu at the Le Minotaure studio. His practice in ceramics complemented his ongoing work as a painter and poet. After returning to Brittany, he continued his artistic and literary explorations and, in particular, developed a personal reflection on “Celtaoism.” This interdisciplinary approach—blending writing, painting, and material—explains the highly pictorial nature of his ceramics.

Le Minotaure Studio. The studio is associated with Paul Quéré and Ariane Mathieu and is part of the major period of renewal in French ceramics from the 1950s to the 1970s. His well-known pieces combine free-form shapes, thick clays, graphic designs, matte glazes, and abstract compositions.

Dimensions: height 52 cm.

Signature: on the base, a handwritten inscription incised with “Le Minotaure” accompanied by the studio’s graphic monogram.