Superb Accolay Manufacture Pitcher

Large ceramic pitcher depicting a bird, signed under the lower accolay.

In 1944, aged around twenty, A. BOUTAUD, Louis DANGON, Slavic PALEY and RAUDE, to avoid STO (compulsory labor in Germany), found themselves training at the vocational high school of CLUNY (71). They have Alexandre KOSTANDA as a ceramics teacher. They meet at the home of a mutual friend who lives near Accolay, in Yonne in Burgundy, where they spend “nights putting the world to rights”. For their personal use, they began manufacturing buttons, brooches and ceramic jewelry in a first bell kiln. The entire team worked for nothing in 1946-47 (the little money was reinvested). From 1947 the fashion phenomenon of ceramic buttons began to pass. Accolay potters need to reconvert to utilitarian ceramics. Very quickly slip using ocher became widespread. The white earth of Provins takes on warm shades from the sandstone! The potters will own a quarry in Provins and “make” their land. The cost price is low thanks to mass production but the pieces are always turned and signed. The first sale took place on a stand in Auxerre during the St Martin fair in 1948. Everything was sold! They will be forced to continue! Very quickly a store at the “lime kiln” and a gas station opened on the side of the N6. But a crisis is coming, they are not on the highway! The commercial flow changes direction, the national road is much less busy. Then May 68 with its return to traditional stoneware and the “poor traditional monochrome single piece”. Accolay, like Vallauris, is not coping well with this revolution in taste: for the new generation who wants a “work” they are offered a consumer product.