Lot #9: Large Mid-Century Alfarez Spain Art Pottery Picasso-Esque Toro Bull Wall Charger 12"

In 1952, Miguel Durn-Loriga y Rodrigez started the Cermica Artstica Alfaraz in the town of Alcala de Henares, just north of Madrid. Durn-Loriga was a noted mid-20th century Spanish ceramicist, designer, architect and professor.The pottery had two rather distinct production lines. The first produced wonderful decorative items, vases, gift boxes and fanciful figures of Spanish people and animals. These mid-century avant-garde designs are truly remarkable. The other line produced ceramic architectural murals, dazzling creations of the architects artistry. He called his mural projects paramentos, which can be translated as adornments or vestments. Eventually he transferred the pottery to a cooperative owned and operated by the workers. The history of European mid-century ceramics can not be written without a chapter on Durn-Loriga.Durn-Loriga was the designer and architect of a revolutionary mid-century ceramic masterpiece, the fountain in the Plaza de la Glorieta in Elche, Spain (built in the late 1960s). Unhappily, it was torn down; but, happily, the town recently rebuilt an exact double of the fountain in the Parc Municipal.Durn-Loriga defined his ethic in this way: The precursor of the industrial designer is a craftsman.