This building is in Chartres, France where it has been classified as an Historic Monument since 1983.

The name ‘Picassiette’ was mockingly given to Raymond Isidore who lived in this house. Roughly translated, it means both ‘plate stealer’ and ‘the Picasso of plates’. Using thousands of pieces of shattered glass, broken crockery and plates, he covered his entire house, walls ceilings, floors and furniture in mosaics.

He started this work in 1938, and completed it in 1962, two years before he died.

A Look at Picassiette

When I visit this place, my first feeling is one of humility. Not towards the place itself, but the same feeling I have in the Cathedral of Chartres a subject often chosen by Raymond Isidore in his work.

These are two spaces whose concepts are very different, where the structures of Picassiette are works of the outside and of the inside seen in a half light the other is of stained glass windows best appreciated in full light, even though they are contrating they both have a distinct connection and such a strong presence.

In Picassiette’s house, we are so near his work, in fact for most of the time inside it! The mysterious atmosphere of this place is of course not only due to the means of expression chosen, and to its three dimensional quality, but also to its compelling allure, to the discovery of each little particle and to the gradual understanding of the overall composition.

After visiting Picassiette I leave with sensations, images, filling my head!

Gilles Ganachaud, Plasticien CHARTRES