Vallauris - Jean Austruy - Double handled vase - Ceramic

Potter in Saint-Marcellin (Isère)
Born in Castres (Tarn) in 1910, Jean Austruy studied drawing at the Montpellier Fine Arts School, then sculpture in Paris, simultaneously at the École nationale supérieure des Arts Décoratifs and at the École des Beaux-Arts.

There he met his future wife Jacqueline, a Fine Arts student, whom he married in 1946 and with whom he would have four children.

The couple settled in the lower Isère Valley, in Saint-Marcellin.
Until 1945, Jean taught drawing and modeling in Grenoble (Fine Arts School and Industrial Arts School).
At the same time, he autodidactically studied pottery, using local clay. After World War II, the demand for ceramic utilitarian items (tableware, lighting, etc.) was strong, which led him to leave teaching to devote himself entirely to this artisanal activity.

Jean initially produced in his garage with a wood-fired kiln he built himself. In 1947, he had a large workshop built with an electric kiln and hired a few workers. He trained Lilette Duport at ceramics (the future Mrs. Valentin of the Vallaurian workshop Les Archanges), who had a training stint to learn ceramics in the first workshop at 3 Avenue de l’Abbaye in Saint-Marcellin. Their son Yves joined the family workshop in 1966 and contributed to the flourishing and creativity of the artisanal production until the workshop’s definitive closure in 2005.

To diffuse his artisanal production, Jean Austruy joined the ceramic guild (now the Fondation des Ateliers d’Arts) and exhibited at the Salon des Ateliers d’Art in Paris. He was present at the 1953 Autumn Salon alongside Georges Jouve, Jacques Blin, Fernand Lacaf, Peter Orlando, Pol Chambost…
At the age of 80, Jean Austruy decided to retire and return to his youth passion: the sculpture of the beast (birds, bears, panthers in bronze and in clay).

He died in November 2012, at the age of 102, leaving behind a personal ceramic work of quality.

At the end of 2009, the town of Saint-Marcellin dedicated to him a retrospective exhibition. His work had already been awarded the Golden Prestige Medal of French crafts in the 1960s.
A ceramic work in perpetual evolution.
Like Suzanne Ramié (Madoura) or Robert Picault, Jean Austruy belongs to that post-war generation of ceramists who reinterpreted traditional popular pottery, thus contributing to the renewal of the arts of earth and fire. He knew how to adapt the style of his creations to endure six decades.

A draftsman and sculptor by training, he redesigned vases and jugs by modernizing their handles with scrolls and twirls.