Ceramic Vase

Beautiful vase with a raw look. Signed under the base.

Robert Chiazzo (1924 – 2020) was a French painter and ceramist.

Pastry chef, farm worker, then house painter, he enlisted during the Second World War, becoming a parachutist with the Commandos d'Afrique, a unit that contributed to the liberation of Bormes in '44.

Returning to Bormes Les Mimosas after the war, he discovered painting with the artist Georges Gouzy, whose studio he took over. In 67, with his wife, he opened a gallery, La Cueva, and began selling works by Roger Collet, Michel Anasse, Jacques Pouchain, Jean-Claude Malarmey, Olivier Pettit, Jacques Lignier… Trained and supported by these artists, he became a ceramist himself in the late 50s. He exhibited at the Biennale Internationale de Céramique d'Art de Vallauris in 1978, 1980 and 1982. In 1987, he returned to his first vocation, abstract painting. Robert Chiazzo's ceramics are characterized by pink, bright coppery red and chamotte clay. The forms are traditional, sometimes animal or plant-like. Some pieces are more brutalist, in which case the stoneware is granulated and scarified.

Today, his work is the object of a real craze from collectors around the world. Galleries regularly exhibit his work in Germany, Canada and the United States.