Georges Jouve (Fontenay-sous-Bois 1910 - 1964)


About

French ceramist GEORGES JOUVE embarked on his artistic career as a theater decorator as soon as he graduated from the prestigious École Boulle in Paris in 1930. Taken prisoner by the Germans during the Second World War, he was interned in a camp from which he managed to escape after several attempts.
Georges Jouve found refuge in a potters' village in the Drôme region with his parents-in-law, where he took up ceramics. The colors of his creations were limited to green, yellow and eggplant. After the end of the fertile pottery era, Georges Jouve now enjoys building with clay, "soft, smooth earth". His creations were sold locally and in Paris, where Georges Jouve returned with his family in September 1944. Here, Georges Jouve opened his small studio, where he experimented with shapes, emphasizing the balance between full and empty, while also researching the effects of smooth or cracked materials and colors, particularly black. Georges Jouve's preference is for objects that are sometimes perfectly useless, enabling him to invent independent, abstract plastic forms, although he remains far removed from any theoretical abstraction