Plate c. 1936

This plate design was conceived by Albert Eyth. I love how the artist embraced the act of artmaking as a journey of exploration and surprise. The texture here is quite interesting. You can see how the blue background is created from many small strokes, so that the overall effect is one of dappled light. The colour palette is pretty bold, with the yellow and green on the bird really popping against the blue backdrop. Then there is this fabulous tail of reddish pink. The contrast emphasizes the flatness of the plate, but also draws attention to the artist’s hand, how the paint has been applied. In a way, the design is almost secondary to the medium. This makes me think about the kind of folk art that Picasso was interested in; raw, expressive and free from too much polish. There is something very pleasing about the ambiguity of this plate design.