Visage no. 54 (Face No. 54), 1963: Pablo Picasso

Pablo Picasso (1881–1973)

Visage no. 54 (Face No. 54), 1963

White earthenware ceramic plate with coloured engobe and glaze

Madoura, Vallauris

Edition 42/150

Diameter: 25 cm

Reference: Ramié 467

One of the defining artists of the twentieth century, Pablo Picasso continually reinvented his practice throughout his long career. While celebrated primarily as a painter, sculptor and printmaker, his ceramics are recognised as an essential part of his artistic legacy, combining the traditions of Mediterranean pottery with the bold visual language that transformed modern art.

Beginning in 1947, Picasso worked extensively with the Madoura pottery workshop in Vallauris, on the French Riviera. Over the following decades he reimagined familiar ceramic forms as original works of art, using plates, bowls and vessels as surfaces for the expressive faces, animals and mythological figures that recur throughout his work. Produced at Madoura workshop under Picasso's close supervision, the editioned ceramics were created using traditional ceramic techniques, with each example hand-finished from his original design.

Created in 1963, Visage no. 54 exemplifies Picasso's extraordinary ability to convey personality through remarkable economy of line. A stylised face, framed within a terracotta-red square at the centre of the plate, is surrounded by rhythmic blue, black and white decorative forms that create a striking sense of movement and balance. Throughout his career, Picasso repeatedly reduced the human face to its simplest expressive elements. In his ceramics, these motifs found an ideal home, transforming functional objects into works of enduring artistic invention.

Today, Picasso's Madoura ceramics are among the most sought-after works of his later career. Produced in carefully controlled numbered editions and documented in Alain Ramié's definitive catalogue raisonné, they occupy an important place within twentieth-century art, valued both for their originality and for the remarkable collaboration between Picasso and the Madoura workshop.

Catalogue raisonné: Alain Ramié, Picasso: Catalogue of the Edited Ceramic Works 1947–1971, no. 467 (A.R. 467).

Conservation framed with velvet lining and with Museum Glass

Size 54cm x 54cm (Framed)