Émile Gallé (1846-1904) was the standard bearer for Art Nouveau, a movement to create a new style in the arts and crafts emerged in the late nineteenth century. His innovative designs, incorporating forms derived from the natural world, won the Grande Prix twice, at the 1889 and 1900 Paris Expositions, for which his name has gone down in history. Gallé is famed as a glass artist , but he also created ceramics, starting during his father’s lifetime. His ceramics reveal his lively sense of humor, as in his Cat in a Dress, for example, or his rather peculiar Asian figures. They give a glimpse of a side of this artist entirely different from the Gallé, “Poet of Glass,” who explored the mysteries of nature. We hope you enjoy the fantastic, and little known, world of Gallé’s ceramics through works displayed alongside his masterworks in glass, the pride of the Kitazawa Museum.