Narrator: After World War ll, Picasso began working with a master craftsman to learn how to make ceramics. Anne Umland:
Anne Umland: As was typical of Picasso, he sort of quickly learned everything there was to know about making ceramics and then proceeded to do exactly what he wanted with that.
I think when you look at bull, or at owl, you do have such a keen sense of these pottery wheel-like contours – those very smooth, swollen volumes. And he also loved being able to combine those volumes with things like utilitarian handles or, in both the bull and the owl's case, the bases that can become their feet. And the way that he puts these things together in collage-like fashion creates this whole different world of all these marvelous little beasts and birds.
One thing that Picasso does to sculpture is that he paints it. He just loved to experiment with the range of surface effects that you could get using things like ceramic slips and glazes that are, of course, unlike those available through oil paint.
