When I first saw this East German pitcher by Strehla, my mind went immediately to Pablo Picasso’s 1905 painting “Family of Saltimbanques” (in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC). The hand-painted cubist, harlequin pattern would have made a perfect costume for one of Picasso’s sad circus performers. There were only two problems: by the time Picasso painted the Saltimbanques, he had moved-out of his Blue Period and into the Rose Period. And, secondly, Picasso hadn’t yet moved fully into his jagged, ground-breaking Cubist period. Fortunately for us, by the time the pitcher above was crafted, all of this Picasso inspiration—Blue Period, Rose Period, Cubism—were history, 40 or 50 years in the past. Conveniently, the East German artist who made this pitcher had the hindsight of semi-recent art history—and the confidence to blend different periods of an important artist’s evolution. Or maybe I’m reading too much into it. Please come into the shop to see it in-person or click on the photo above to learn more about it.
Tomorrow: more from our recent shipments of European art pottery.
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