CRIS AGTERBERG and ROGER GUERIN, Art Deco sandstone vase, ca 1925.
Rare artistic collaboration carried out in the workshops of Roger Guérin (Bouffioulx stoneware) in Belgium around 1925.
Vase signed with the monogram 'CA' by Cris Agterberg.
In perfect condition.
Bibliography: "Au Gré du grès, de l'Art Nouveau à l'Art Déco. Roger Guérin et Edgard Aubry"
- Artist / Designer:Cris Agterberg.
- Signature / Monogram:Signed.
- Period:20th Century / Mid Century / 1920 - 1940.
- Country of Origin:Belgium.
- Dimensions (H x W x D):19 x 14 x 14 cm.
- Weight:2 Kg.
- Number of components:1.
- Condition:Excellent.
- Style:Art Deco / Modernism.
- Material:Ceramic/Sandstone.
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Price:1100 €
Roger Guérin (1896-1954) was a renowned Belgian ceramist (Bouffioulx) of the 20th century, particularly of the Art Deco period, and a friend of Edgard Aubry. Born in Belgium in 1896, he showed a keen interest in ceramics. He enrolled at the Charleroi vocational school, where he took pottery classes with Willem Delsaux. Transitioning from the Art Nouveau to the Art Deco period (between 1915 and 1945), he created vases and sculptures in "high-fired stoneware" in a single firing (1300°C). He skillfully navigated both artistic styles of his time. In 1934, he was appointed Professor at the Higher School of Decorative Arts of La Cambre in Brussels. Perfect in his work, he was contacted for numerous artistic collaborations and produced pieces for renowned artists (Belgian and foreign) such as Marcel Wolfers, Cris Lebeau and Cris Agterberg, including 'Le Baiser', 'La Danse' and 'La Méditation' (Amsterdam School in the Netherlands), Thierry Van Rijswijck, Domien Ingels, Angelo Hecq, François Carion,...
He participated in numerous exhibitions, notably winning the silver medal at the INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION OF INDUSTRIAL AND MODERN DECORATIVE ARTS IN PARIS in 1925.
International recognition followed in 1947 at the JENSEN GALLERY in NEW YORK.
His preferred forms are: the spherical vase, faceted vase, geometric vase (timeless), sculpture.
Work comparable to the works of Auguste Delaherche, Pierre Adrien Dalpayrat, Emile Lenoble, Léon Pointu, Ernest Chaplet, Decoeur, Paul Jeanneney (known as Loewenguht), Jean Carries, Bernard Leach...
Cristopher "Cris" Agterberg (1883-1948 – Dutch sculptor and ceramicist) was born in Amsterdam in 1883. Trained at the applied arts schools of Amsterdam and Elberfeld (Germany), he later settled in Utrecht. A versatile artist, he worked with jewelry, glass, leather, textiles, and ceramics, but considered himself primarily a sculptor. In the interwar period, he collaborated with several Dutch decorative arts manufacturers (Leerdam glassworks, Zenith and Zuid-Holland potteries), although he preferred to produce small, handcrafted series himself (abstract bronzes, terracotta figures) in the style of the Amsterdam School. He is notably known for his stylized bronze clocks (1920s), where zoomorphic motifs and reclining female figures embody the decorative ideal of the Amsterdam School.
Agterberg belongs to the lineage of the great European ceramists of the turn of the 20th century. The French pioneers Théodore Deck and Edmond Lachenal laid the foundations of modern decorative ceramics. Lachenal, a master of Art Nouveau, profoundly influenced this movement with his organic forms and innovative glazes. Agterberg takes up this legacy, reinterpreting it through the geometric aesthetic of Art Deco. Among his contemporaries are the Frenchman Lucien Brisdoux (1878-1963), renowned for his stoneware vases with metallic glazes (gold, platinum), and the Belgian Roger Guérin (1896-1954), a major figure in Art Deco, who produced several of his works (notably the stoneware sculpture The Kiss, circa 1930). Stylized bronze clocks, decorative vases (for example, an Art Deco copper vase decorated with nude women in 1940) and Agterberg's sculpted figures fully embody the Art Deco movement.
Sources : Biography and notice of works of C. Agterberg; studies on Lachenal and Deck; notices on Lucien Brisdoux and Roger Guérin.