PALM DESERT, CA.- Heather James Fine Art in Palm Desert, CA, has established itself among U.S. and international art collectors as one of the nation's premier galleries with shows by Monet, Rauschenberg and diverse, up-and-coming young artists. Today it announces a world-class Picasso exhibition that will survey the master's paintings, drawings and sculptures from several of his major periods, including Cubism, and will highlight an important private collection of 80 pieces of Picasso's ceramics. These works will appeal to a wide range of collectors with prices from $5000 to $25 million. The show will run November 28, 2009, through March 14, 2010.
"Picasso was an artist that influenced multiple generations," says Chip Tom, acclaimed curator for Heather James Fine Art. "That's due not only to his brilliance, but also to how long he lived and worked. He was an artist who was personally pushing his own art to new levels every day, experimenting with diverse genres and cultural influences, challenging himself to create in many different mediums."
James Carona, owner of Heather James Fine Art, believes Picasso perfectly represents the mission of his gallery. "We want to create dialogues between different art forms, time periods and genres, just as Picasso did. We're very excited to have these extraordinary works by the master here, not only to see how they interact themselves, but also to see what kinds of dialogues they'll generate with works of other artists we will be showing concurrently."
Picasso, who died in 1973 at the age of 92, created thousands of unique ceramics during his lifetime, many made in limited editions at the Madoura pottery factory in the south of France. The ceramics, like all of his work, reflect the artist's passion for mythology and women. "These pieces are very autobiographical and at times reflect Picasso's very sexual nature," says the owner of the collection. "He was a prolific print maker and he saw the clay as an extension of his etchings and paintings. He would find objects and press them into the clay, he would etch images into the wet clay and he would paint the pieces before they were fired in the kiln." Picasso made the ceramics so people who could not afford his paintings could enjoy and buy his art.
According to the collector, the "standout piece of the exhibit, and in Picasso's ceramic universe" is a "Grand White Vase" with Four Panels that Picasso designed and supervised the making of himself. From an edition of 25, the vase reveals iconic imagery that he loved and repeated throughout his lifetime, with a different image etched on each of its "four sides:" a powerful smiling sun, a human face, and a woman front and back - her sex and belly button on the front, her buttocks on the backside. Picasso truly loved to do the ceramics because they gave people a tactile experience, not like paintings.
Other featured pieces include: "La Petite Chouette", 1953 - This famous sculpture from the Ganz family collection belongs to Picasso's assemblages, works of art he created by freely combining ready-made, found objects. "He began making assemblages in the early 1940s when he came across an old bicycle saddle and a rusty pair of handlebars on a scrap heap," says Carona. "He immediately saw a bull's head in these odd parts and later executed his vision. His objective wasn't to produce a dramatic effect, but rather to create an object from a spontaneous decision." Picasso made this owl entirely from pieces of scrap, including nails, screws, nuts, a pair of pliers and a metal saucepan molded together with plaster.
