Most artists need a place of respite and restoration—even if they bring their work with them. Georgia O’Keeffe had Taos. Marsden Hartley had Maine. Gustave Klimt unwound at the lakeside at Attersee. For Pablo Picasso, his restorative oasis was most certainly the South of France.

From 1919 until his death in 1973, the artist regularly traveled to the Côte d’Azur, taking up residence in Cannes, at the Villa La Californie 1955 to 1961, before moving to Mougins, where he would live for the last 12 years of his life. 

Pablo Picasso, Visage au nez noir (1969). Courtesy of Bailly Gallery.

An escape from city life, the beauty and history of the region also inspired creative, and often playful, innovation in the great 20th-century artist. Now, “Picasso x Vallauris,” a new exhibition at Bailly Gallery in Geneva, is celebrating the works Picasso created there.

At the heart of the exhibition are the artist’s whimsical ceramics—vases in the shapes of owls, plates with faces and giant eyes. His ceramics were inextricably linked to the South of France, and for years he collaborated with Georges and Suzanne Ramié, the couple who founded the renowned Madoura workshop in Vallauris. What’s more, the mythology of the region inspired Picasso’s many depictions of the figure of the faun, a playful and jocular symbol of peace and fertility with which the artist identified.

“Through ‘Picasso x Vallauris,’ the gallery pays tribute to this extraordinary artist and his beloved Côte d’Azur that had become his new home,” Bailly Gallery said in a statement. “The exhibition presents his lifetime of accomplishments, carefully composed in a selection of drawings, oil on canvas, and ceramics.”

See more images from “Picasso x Vallauris” below. 

Pablo Picasso, Columbe (1966). Courtesy of Bailly Gallery.

Pablo Picasso, Nature morte sur un guéridon devant une fenêtre ouverte (1919). Courtesy of Bailly Gallery.

Pablo Picasso, Visage (1960). Courtesy of Bailly Gallery.

Pablo Picasso, Pichet à glace (1952). Courtesy of Bailly Gallery.

“Picasso x Vallauris” is on view at Bailly Gallery, Geneva, through February 28, 2021.