Jules AGARD Pear-shaped vase ‘The Owl’ Sculpted from solid earthenware and decorated with engobes. Painted and sgraffito decoration. Hand-signed ‘J Agard’ on the projecting part of the foot. H.: 42 cm Sculpted from solid earthenware and decorated with slips, featuring painted and sgraffito decoration; hand-signed on the projecting part of the base. Height: 16.54 in. A long crack running from bottom to top, caused by stresses during firing. Jules Agard was a French ceramicist whose career is inextricably linked to the golden age of Vallauris. After starting out in 1921 as a potter’s wheel operator at Jérôme Massier’s workshop, he joined Suzanne Ramié’s Madoura studio in 1939. From 1947 onwards, he became Pablo Picasso’s official potter’s wheel operator, a close collaboration that would last twenty-two years. Agard was able to bring to life the most daring forms imagined not only by Picasso, but also by other masters who frequented the studio, such as Chagall, Matisse and Brauner. Upon his retirement in 1971, he devoted himself to his own work at the Poterie des Noisetiers, creating a bestiary and anthropomorphic pieces with free-form shapes, often distorted and coated in coloured engobes. Also a painter, he received numerous awards, including an Honourable Mention at the Cannes Biennale in 1967, and exhibited his works as far afield as the United States. Jules AGARD