Gyn Gausserand and Robert Auguste met in 1948 at the Fontcarrade pottery school in Montpellier. They shared the same studio throughout their lives; first in Vallauris with the whole gang (Capron, Derval, Kostanda, Picasso of course, Picault, Ramié, etc.), then in Millau, and finally in Pouzilhac where they settled in a studio house to work more and better – to create their world. This book is an opportunity to shed light on a pottery workshop that was active for nearly seventy years, from the early 1950s until 2017, by highlighting its technical, ideological and cultural aspects.
In Vallauris, their production was already polymorphous: the resolutely modern and free approach of the duo formed by Gyn and Robert is remarkable and concurrent with their work in other workshops. Gyn made decors at their neighbour Jacques Lignier, while Robert worked as a turner with Odette Gourju Naumowitch and her husband Ljuba (parents of Jacques Innocenti) at the Grand Chêne workshop. Their creations, signed RGA Vallauris, RGA, R et G Auguste, RA, GG, Gyn, reveal not just culinary pieces but also pots with a sculptural appearance and panels with painted decorations that take on a truly artistic dimension, one beyond the mere sense of use.
When they left Vallauris, Gyn and Robert made their autonomy a priority. The most important thing was to make themselves available for encounters in their pottery studio – the place where they made and sold their work. The talent of these two potters, who were allies from the start, is to have developed throughout their lives a vocabulary of very identifiable forms present from the beginning of their activity.
Their fidelity to this style is verified by the numerous archival images and signatures from all eras presenting minute variations in decoration. The charismatic Robert and Gyn had very different personalities and, conscious of their complementarity, chose an alternative lifestyle that serves as an early echo of today’s revival of the earth trades. This publication includes excerpts from interviews, selections from photographic and written archives (letters, drawings, poems, chemical formulas, accounting records), and contemporary in situ photographs taken by the artist-filmmaker Ben Russell of the pieces remaining in what was Robert and Gyn’s last pottery workshop. This monograph is co-published by IRIS éditions and Dent-de-Leone.