Collectors and decorators alike often find, in their work, a quiet sense of poetry and humor.

Atelier Dalo is the French ceramic duo of Daniel Derock (b. 1974) and Loïc de Bailliencourt (b. 1971), working together since 2007, first in Paris and later, from 2021, in Rouen, Normandy. Coming to clay from other disciplines, one from the sciences and the other from music and archiving, they trained under a range of masters in modeling, wheel-throwing, and glazing before committing fully to ceramics. Drawing on French decorative traditions from the 1950s to the 1980s, in the lineage of Georges Jouve, Pol Chambost, and Jean and Robert Cloutier, they combine the colorful, lively spirit of postwar earthenware with the sober, matte character of 1970s stoneware. Each piece is worked by four hands, using techniques including wheel-throwing, hand-modeling, and colombinage, the assembly of coiled clay. Their figurative lines, elongated and purified, have given rise to the “Idole” series: stylized, ancient-looking faces recalling prehistoric idols, a recurring motif across their vessels and sculptural forms alike.