Glazed ceramic vase by Gilbert Portanier

Gilbert Portanier edition piece in green and ochre enamelled ceramic, decorated with a stylised scene. Dim: 45 X 30 X 10cm. Signed Portanier in the mass. Biographical note on Gilbert Portanier: Born in Cannes in 1926, Gilbert Portanier attended the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris from 1945 to 1948. With his friends Albert Diato and Francine Del Pierre, he founded the Atelier du Triptyque in Vallauris. Their first pieces were quite thick but already very creative. They separated in 1950, Gilbert Portanier wishing to stay in Vallauris, while Diato and Del Pierre left for Paris. After training in different workshops, he opened his own in 1954, Chemin des Potiers where he still works. His first pieces are finely turned, and, through his training as a painter, he creates decorations that will be his signature and his style in a light figuration, on the edge of abstraction. Little by little, he evolves towards sculptures, sometimes monumental, always bearing this emblematic decoration. He uses the red earth of Vallauris until the end of the 70s (end of its extraction) then he will work with white earth. From 1964 he collaborates with Rosenthal for table services, as well as for the manufacture of edition pieces. He received the silver medal at the international exhibition of Brussels, the grand prize of the biennial of Faenza in 1966. And exhibited many times in Germany where he is very appreciated.