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A baffling character with a hectic career, to be
undoubtedly linked with the followers of CARRIES, and quite justly named by M.
Marcel POULET as a Jack-o’-lantern of pottery. An orphan at the age of 15, he
was an exile in the Parisian suburbs, then, at the age of 28, was an artist (painter)
in England. In 1906 he was officially settled in Arquian, in the department of
Nièvre, although the authorities mention him there as soon as 1894. It is only
at the age of 51 that he publicly acted as a ceramist, exhibiting a lot of vases
at the Salon de Nevers in 1907. It then became obvious that he had practised
pottery for some years and that he knew Jean CARRIES and other artists, the
sculptor V. COCHIN among others. Indisputably talented as a thrower, with an
obvious mastery of enamels, the sources of his apprenticeship remain a mystery,
even if one may think that he worked in collaboration with Emile GRITTEL and
Georges HOENTSCHEL. He dedicated six years to pottery, his production was
therefore scarce, yet success and recognition were almost immediate. However, in
1912 he gave up everything and went to Lyon.
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