Mg Gomila - Sant Vicens – The Fish – 1950 -

Ceramic plate created in Sant-Vicens in Perpignan around 1950, a black-brown enameled decoration on a creamy white background, of a fish on a bed of leaves surrounded by two fish. M. Gumersind GOMILA (1905-1970), Signed on the back "G. Gomila Sant-Vicens" Diameter: 25 cm Weight: 0.5 Kgrs. In very good used and original condition. In excellent condition, no cracks, scratches or breakage. The Photos are an integral part of the description. Biography of the Sant-Vicens factory At the end of the 1930s, Firmin Bauby, a decorator, acquired a wine farmhouse on the outskirts of Perpignan, to create a ceramics center there. He tamed the earth with Gustave Violet, in his early youth, in Prades. The project was quickly thwarted by events, but managed to see the light of day thanks to the sponsorship of Aristide Maillol, Raoul Dufy, and Albert Bausil. The first kiln was operational on January 3, 1943. Louis Antico was the workshop manager. The first potteries of Sant Vicens perpetuated the Catalan tradition, until 1944, when Firmin Bauby called on sculptors, such as Miquel Paredes, to celebrate the Liberation. Lucien Goron would then come from the Sèvres factories to teach the most advanced ceramic techniques to the workshop workers. From 1948, new creators settled there. Most of them worked for the workshop, and worked on their own creations in their free time. Firmin Bauby then had to set up a place to exhibit these pieces to the public, the estate's cellar, with its oak barrels, was transformed into an exhibition space. Denys Bauby, Firmin's brother, took over the administrative and commercial management of Sant Vicens. At the same time, Firmin was keen to perpetuate a family tradition: that of the nativity scene (pessebre, in Catalan). He asked the artists in the workshop to participate, which they did with enthusiasm. Since then, the pessebre of Sant Vicens has always been a moment for the people of Perpignan. In 1951, Jean Lurçat visited Firmin Bauby and entrusted him with his ceramic creations. He stayed twice a year in Sant Vicens until his death in 1966. He created drawings, shapes, imagined colours, and even submitted them to Gumersind Gomila, the workshop manager. In the 1940s, Gumersind Gomila joined the Atelier Sant Vicens run by the Bauby brothers to work on ceramics. His exceptional mastery of reds and the finesse of his line aroused the interest of Jean Lurçat, whose friend he quickly became, the exclusive ceramist, in a word, the collaborator in the etymological sense of the term since Lurçat insisted that Gomila's signature appear on their major joint productions, including the sign for the ORTF house in Strasbourg. Alongside these major works, Gumersind Gomila produced more humble pieces (lamps, dishes, plates, ashtrays) under his signature or that of Jean Lurçat, which fully fit into the artisanal vocation of Sant Vicens.