Joost Marechal

Joost Maréchal is undoubtedly one of the most important post war Belgian ceramist. It is not an exaggeration to state that he played a similar role as Bernard Leach did in England a generation earlier. Taking the teachings of Leach,Maréchal started to renew Flemish ceramics and his teachings inspired a whole generation of young and talented ceramists in the 1950's, 1960's and 1970's.

Until recently, the only source on Maréchals work remained the 1958 book on the artist by Albert De Poorter. Luckily the 2007 book by Marc Heiremans, Art ceramics - Pioneers in Flanders 1938-1978, filled this void and gives a good overview of his production, together with the works of the Amphora and Perignem workshops.

However it is very difficult for the ceramic enthusiast, collector, researcher, … to get a good idea of the work of this very versatile artist. Ceramics by Maréchal are very scarce, often the pieces are unique and even his 'serial' production was made in very limited numbers.

This is the reason why we are presenting a source catalogue, based on the pictures we took at our 2007 retrospective Joost Maréchal exhibition, assembling a representative body of his work.

For the realisation of this project we have to thank first and foremost the family of Joost Maréchal for their collaboration and support and Frank Huygens (Designmuseum Gent), who kindly lent his expertise in dating most of the pieces at the exhibition.

We hope you enjoy this virtual visit and feel free to give us your comments. We will also add your pictures to the list if you care to expand this selection.