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Ione Tissot has kindly helped me with this biography and by providing many rare pieces from her private ceramic collection for the photos on this website which were photographed at her lovely colonial house. Also she provided me with a trove of original product photos from the Leona Valley period along with his Taxco stockroom samples as well as the Gump's correspondence and family photos that have never been seen before. Currently Ione Tissot is the owner of the original "Casa Aquilar" that Felix bought from Hector Aquilar and restored, she offers B&B on a limited basis and you can peruse her offering Here >> In the year 1956 a naturalized US citizen of French origin arrived in Taxco, Mexico to start a new life, a new ceramic studio and a new family. Like many of the artists that had been drawn to Taxco's climate and congenial group of worldly ex-pates that had arrived to seek an ideal, Felix Tissot was looking to start a new life. He had been living at Leona Valley outside Los Angeles in a barren part of the Mojave desert where he was slowly establishing himself as a "Contemporary Modern" ceramist and his work had reached a level of professional production that he had several exhibits in the early 1950's at the famous Gump's department store in San Francisco. After arriving in Taxco, Felix soon set up a studio in partnership with Antonio Castillo, at #17 Calle Veracruz on the corner across from the Santa Veracruz church and a year and a half experiment that produced a few rare Tissot/Castillo signed pieces. Felix also met a beautiful and talented artist from Canada, Jane Keenan and in short order they were married and living in an apartment in what is now Taxco's municipal hall "Casa Jana" where we see them over breakfast. Here also is seen the first line of ceramics that Felix produced in Taxco. To me it has the "Modern Look" similar to the Dansk line of matt glazed utility pottery. Felix
soon realized that the Nauhatl indians from Xalita (Chalita) in the
mountains outside the nearby city of Chilpancingo, who were skilled
at drawing indian scenes on a bark paper called Amate, could also draw
on his ceramics. He transported his sanded bisqueware to the artist's
mountain villages which included Ameyaltepec to be decorated and returned
to a new factory in what is now the hotel Agua Escondido's parking garage.
Chitilan indians artwork became what is known as the "Fantasia"
line of ceramic wares where no two were ever the exact same pattern
and each artist inscribed his mark on the bottom as did the finish sander
and the glazier. This explains the rather cryptic letters and numbers
inscribed on each piece. More >> |
