Between 1945 and 1948 Gilbert PORTANIER studies architecture and painting at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris.
In 1948, he settles down in Vallauris and immediately follows the way initiated by Picasso by founding Le Triptyque with Albert DIATO and Francine DELPIERRE.
A year and a half later, he goes from one workshop to the other, multiplying the baking experiments, throwing his own pieces, favouring the unique pieces, before moving into an old traditional workshop in 1954 where he still is to-day.
Success is not long to come. Since he was awarded a first gold medal at the International Exhibition in Brussels in 1953, he has been participating in numerous exhibitions, often international ones, often winning a prize, among which in 1955 at an exhibition at the Kunstgewerbe Museum with PICASSO and Fernand LEGER, a prize in Faenza and a gold medal in Munich in 1966.
In 1985 The Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe in Hambourg devotes a retrospective of his works.
The painter's hand, cleverly combined with the potter's, enables him to achieve a very personal production, with amazing and sculptural shapes totally ignoring the useful purpose.
The drawing of the first period is sharp and fine, close to a mere stroke of the pen, enhanced with a few pale flat colours. Then, from the 60s on, the stroke changes, it may be coloured and the colours brighter and brighter.
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