Thursday, September 17, 1998 Published at 16:46 GMT 17:46 UK
Picasso's other passion
The exhibition will include nearly 200 of Picasso's ceramic creations (Courtesy: Succession Piccasso/DACS 1998)
A new exhibition opens on Thursday, dedicated to the lesser known works of the artist Pablo Picasso.
The Royal Academy of Arts in London is hosting the first ever display that focuses exclusively on Picasso's clay works - in an attempt to dispel the obscurity that surrounds them.
Already world famous for his paintings, and with his notorious Blue, Rose and Cubism periods behind him, Picasso started to learn the art of clay sculpting in 1948.
He worked at the Madoura pottery works in the small Cote d'Azur town of Vallauris. Picasso lived there for seven years with Francoise Gilot, the artist 41 years his junior who also the mother of two of his children, Claude and Paloma.
He went on to create more than 3,500 clay sculptures, featuring the distinctive Picasso subjects - women, bull-fights, birds and fish, often Meditteranean-inspired.
The traditional vases and bowls were turned into tanagras and bull-rings by Picasso, who would take a simple clay object and transpose on it a variety of shapes and colours.
Ms Davies says: "The ceramics all just have such a great sense of humour. They are very witty interpretations of traditional items such as plates, jugs and vases."
The Royal Academy's exhibition includes around 200 of Picasso's clay and ceramic works, with at least two thirds never before exhibited.
Most had remained in his studio and were passed on to family members on his death in 1973.
However, a small number of Picasso's clay creation were put on show at private collections, at Picasso museums in Europe and the Ludwig Collection in Cologne.
They were all created at Vallauris, at a time recalled by many as the 20th century renaissance of art during the post-war years.
"The success of these ceramic works was always overshadowed by Picasso's paintings, and after all, they are not as popular. But we hope now they will come into focus," Ms Davies says.
But if Picasso's clay works never did much for his name as a sculptor, they did a great deal for the town of Vallauris, which shot from obscurity to become the home of ceramics.