TAKE FIVE: PICASSO CERAMICS EXHIBIT

Thursday, June 14, 2007 | 8:05 a.m.

What: "In the Master's Hands: Picasso's Ceramics, Treasures From the Estate of Pablo Picasso"

Where: Bellagio Gallery of Fine Art

When: 10:30 a.m.-6 p.m. Sunday-Thursday; 10 a.m.-9 p.m. Friday-Saturday, through Jan. 14.

Cost: $17; $12 for students; $14 for seniors, age 65 and over and for Nevada residents

Pablo Picasso had already transformed the art world with his cubist paintings and sculpture when he found himself at the Madoura pottery workshop in Vallauris, France, playing with a new medium at the age of 65.

Unlike his paintings, the ceramic pieces he created there, beginning in 1947, weren't shuttled to shows and galleries.

So when the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in conjunction with the Royal Academy in London, opened a show of Picasso's ceramics in 1999, comments ranged from "Ceramics? Picasso? Really?" to talk of the artist's waning mastery in his later years.

Innovative and playful, the ceramic works were equally shredded and praised by ceramicists and critics, and left as an appendage to his more serious work.

Since then, Picasso's ceramics have made their way to museums around the world. Limited edition works pop up on college campuses and at smaller venues. More recently they've turned up on the market as a more affordable alternative to his paintings .

Now that the Bellagio Gallery of Fine Art is showing 32 pieces, the discussion as to whether he was merely slumming in the south of France or mastering a new medium is yours to continue.

The gallery is owned and operated by PaperBall, a subsidiary of New York's Pace Wildenstein, which has represented members of the Picasso family and is currently exhibiting "Picasso, Braque and Early Film in Cubism" in New York.

A look at "Picasso's Ceramics":

Fun with Picasso

Zeroing in on a variety of works, including "Head of a Bearded Man," this show allows an intimate look at Picasso's creative process and how he experimented while at the mercy of the unpredictable nature of the kiln. It begins with a sculpted trio of female figures, their bodies formed by pinched, sculpted and crudely folded clay and slathered with glaze. Vases, plates, painted tiles and bowls also followed.

Zoomorphic

Picasso didn't throw his own clay. He played with broken pieces or softened vessels that he formed into his own creations, often maintaining the look of the functional vessel while turning it into the shape of an animal. In "Fish" (1951), he pinched the vase top to form a tail and formed and pierced its bottom for a mouth. Handles remain and are incorporated into stands, arms and other body parts.

Getting acquainted

The ceramics are often light hearted and were created during a happy period in the artist's life. No tragedy of "Guernica" here, or the unbearable sadness of "Weeping Woman." A nod and a smile at "Bird," a pert abstract vase, are all the response required. The charming "Still Life With Fish, Fork and Slice of Lemon" (1953), approached in the style of 16th-century potter Bernard Palissy, is equally as creative and playful.

The nerve

Picasso incorporated iconic elements from his homeland as well as art history into his ceramic works. Although the ceramics don't pack the wallop of weightier works and dominate art world discourse, that didn't stop British potter Bernard Leach from going into a tizzy over the fact that Picasso was not a ceramicist, but a painter merely decorating the pots. Nevertheless, the artist influenced a group of serious ceramacists in the 1950s.

But before you leave

Picasso once said a picture "is not conceived and determined in advance." Instead, "while you're doing it, it follows the changeability of the idea." Quite possibly the gem of this exhibit is the opportunity to experience exactly what the artist was talking about. Tucked away on a back wall in the annex of the mazelike Bellagio Gallery of Fine Art is " The Mystery of Picasso," the 1950s film by Henri-Georges Clouzot that shows a shirtless Picasso painting and drawing in real time while the camera films it on the other side of the paper. Alas, there is no bench, but it's worth the sore feet. It's also available on DVD.