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Zsolnay,  Secession vases, Hungary, circa 1900.

MUST RUN MAY 2 FALLING IN LOVE WILL OPEN MAY 8 AT JASON JACQUES

IN NEW YORK CITY,

SET 4/21, AVV/CD #735913

NEW YORK CITY — Jason Jacques, the uptown ceramics dealer with the downtown attitude, will present an exhibition, “Falling in Love,” on view May 8–June 30.

In a setting where cannabis-printed draperies and bejeweled electrical wires vie for attention, the flamboyant array of seductive Art Nouveau damsels, over-ripe gourds and severe blood-red Japonist vases will take center stage. The European masters who created these ceramics more than 100 years ago are currently being embraced by leading museums.

The spirit of revolution is at the core of Jacques’s collection. In the mid-Nineteenth Century, mass-produced European ceramics were made to resemble the luxury wares produced for royalty and the aristocracy.

As the turn of the Twentieth Century approached, a few brave potters struck out on their own to create a new art for a new age. In France, Edmond Lachenal, Ernest Chaplet and Adrien Dalpayrat led the charge in a rebellion against fussy rococo porcelains by filling exposition stalls with robust stoneware coated in rich flambe glazes.

Taking cues from the Japanese creations they had seen at a succession of international expositions, French studio potters mastered the Asian forms and decorations, then reinterpreted them to express their personal aesthetics.

Their English, Dutch, Hungarian, Italian, Austrian, German and Scandinavian counterparts were not far behind and, by 1900, boutiques offered vessels sporting subtle orange peel glazes, mysterious iridescent frogs, gently swaying tulips and stylized peacock feathers. Careers were built on the ability to turn stoneware clay and high-fire glazes into the most surprising shapes and color effects imaginable.

World’s Fairs held between 1889 and 1915 served as international showcases for the revolutionary ceramics. Art journals published reviews and images. Leading entrepreneurs, including Siegfried Bing, Ernst Wahliss and Arthur Liberty, encouraged the ceramists and sold their creations in small boutiques in Paris, Vienna and London. Museums and individuals amassed collections that inspired later generations.

The onset of war in Europe may have put an end to the movement’s active phase, but its artifacts remain for today’s collectors to love and possess.

The gallery is at 29 East 73 Street #1. For information, www.jasonjacques.com or 212-535-7500