Peter Marino Flaunts His Collection of Stoneware Vessels in His Upcoming Book

“All the records were blown to bits by the kindly German invading armies in World War II—that’s one reason why this history went underground.” So says Peter Marino , AD100 architect and collector of what he calls “the highest art form”: ceramics, particularly the French variety of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Marino and museum curator Etienne Tornier’s upcoming book, Adrien Dalpayrat: The Peter Marino Collection ( Phaidon, $275 ), salutes a suburban-Paris superstar whose stoneware vessels the architect, enraptured by the artist’s glazes, has amassed over some 40 years. “They’re paintings as well as sculptures,” Marino says, pointing out the cover image: a circa-1900, oxblood-red vase splashed with turquoise green in proto–Abstract Expressionist glee. “You can put that right up there with Jackson Pollock, with Mark Rothko, with anybody.”

Adrien Dalpayrat vessels chez Marino.