How nice it is to be creative
with a simple material such as clay.
I did it my whole life
and still have new ideas.
How wonderful to express myself
every day
with this white gold
as porcelain is called.
Always
in the same philosophy
of tactility and vulnerability.

 Piet Stockmans

Piet Stockmans

Cultural Ambassador of Flanders.

Piet Stockmans loves the medium porcelain in all its qualities: he designs industrially produced porcelain, he constructs artifacts and creates artistic installations. He always in some way knows how to express his feelings and rhythm in a material, naturally cold and solid. That is the reason this seemingly different work carries a rare but universal power.

 In his work, form and content flow into each other, as cristals of the basic material at a temperature of 1,400 degrees Celsius are firmly stuck together. In this the repetition plays a paradoxical role. Piet Stockmans has transposed the repetitive part of the undeniable technical process in industry, to an artistic way of expression in his free work. The extraordinary paradox lies in the fact that he never repeats his own process, but that he always surprises one with new, unpredictable changes.

Piet Stockmans' white world with blue accents is as completely recognisable as it is unpredictable. 

It represents a blameless expression of signs, that are sometimes functional, but always esthetic.

Next to his creative process, his wife, as the first critic, backs him up in a silent but unreplacable way. 

Apart from his three-fold activities, Piet Stockmans passes on his knowledge of industrial design at the Katholieke Hogeschool Limburg in Genk (B).

By this original, multiple and expanding way of working with porcelain, Piet Stockmans occupies a unique position in Flemish post-second-worldwar Art History.

Jo Rombouts

Curriculum vitae PIET STOCKMANS

Born in Leopoldsburg (BE) October 26th 1940

Awards

Ion Award, Good industrial design, Maastricht (NL), 1987

Official Prize from the Flemish Community in Visual Arts (BE), 1988

Award ‘Art and smell’ perfume packaging (NL), 1993

Cultural Ambassador of Flanders (BE), 1995

Award ‘Auszeichnung RED DOT für Höchste Designqualität’, Nordrhein Westfalen (DE), 1996

Henry van de Velde price for a career, Design Vlaanderen (BE), 1998

First Prize category Design for tableware LA MER, European Ceramic Context, Bornholm (DK), 2006

Selection of art work bought by museums

MuZee - Oostende (BE)

Designmuseum - Gent (BE)

Museum Het Stadsmus - Hasselt (BE)

George R. Gardiner Museum - Toronto (CA)

Musée National de Sèvres – Sèvres (FR)

Victoria & Albert Museum – London (GB)

Museo Internazionale delle Ceramiche - Faenza (IT)

Icheon Ceramic Center – Icheon (KR)

Stedelijk Museum - Amsterdam (NL)

Haags Gemeentemuseum - Den Haag (NL)

Boymans-van Beuningen - Rotterdam (NL)

Stedelijk Museum - Schiedam (NL)

Museum Het Princessehof - Leeuwarden (NL)

Gemeentemuseum - Arnhem (NL)

Stadskantoor Zwolle - Zwolle (NL)

Museum of Arts and Design – New York City, NY (US)

Los Angeles County Museum of Art - Los Angeles, CA (US)

Metropolitan Museum - New York City, NY (US)

Long Beach Art Museum – Long Beach, CA (US)

Racine Art Museum – Racine, WI (US)

Carnegie Institute – Pittsburg, Pennsylvania (USA)

Mint Museum of Craft and Design – Charlotte, NC (US)

Ceramic Res. Center – Arizona State Univ, Tempe, AZ (US)

Newark Museum of Art – Newark, NJ (US)