Anton Prinner - The Sky as a Ceiling

Catalogue of the exhibition ‘Anton Prinner – The Sky as a Ceiling’, presented at the Magnelli Museum, Vallauris (4 July – 28 September 2026).

The catalogue highlights a key period in the career of Anton Prinner (1902–1983), an artist of Hungarian origin who settled in Paris in the late 1920s, focusing in particular on the years he spent in Vallauris.

The work of Anton Prinner, a painter, sculptor, printmaker and writer, stands out for its originality and radicalism within the realm of modern art. Although he experimented with various modes of expression, Prinner established himself first and foremost as a sculptor. It was through this medium that, in 1937, he shifted from an abstraction close to Constructivism towards figuration. Engraving and works on paper also occupy a major place in his artistic practice. Through their themes and formal explorations, these bodies of work foreshadow several of the directions that would subsequently unfold in Vallauris, where Prinner settled for fifteen years, between 1950 and 1965. In the Tapis Vert studio, his sculpture took on a monumental scale. There, he also developed a body of ceramic work.

Bringing together sculptures, ceramics, prints and photographs, this catalogue highlights a prolific period in his career, characterised by the convergence of modernist art, spirituality and artisanal craftsmanship.

Contents

Anton Prinner, ‘Here, I have the sky for a ceiling’
Céline Graziani

The power of the image. Anton Prinner, engraving at work
Eléa Sicre

‘A work of silence’
Céline Graziani

WORKS
Works on paper
Sculptures
Ceramics
Church of Roquefort-les-Pins

APPENDICES
List of works
Biography
Benoît Decron
Bibliography
Acknowledgements