Decorative Ceramic Bowl, Alexandre Kostanda, France c. 1948

Born to Russian parents Alexandre Kostanda very quickly tried his hand at ceramics when his parents settled in Vallauris in 1929.
After a few years of apprenticeship at Giraud’s workshop, immediately after the second world war, he embraced teaching ceramics for a time in the Beaune area (Burgundy) and founded his first workshop in Cluny.
He had during this period, as students, the founding members of the Accolay school.
Throughout his artistic life he used Cluny clay even though he returned to Vallauris in 1949.

Kostanda is considered by his peers as a remarkable turner but he excels above all in robust forms where the intervention of the potter’s hand is visible, as in this historic piece which through its subject makes the link between the land of Burgundy and the Riviera culture.