Jean-Joseph Carriès

Jean-Joseph Carriès born in Lyon the February 15th 1855, dead on July 1st 1894, is a sculptor, potter and miniaturist very admired at the end of the XIX century. Wire of a shoe-maker it is orphan at the six years age, collected by a religious institution it carries out a training in a sculptor of religious objects, it there reveals its personality quickly and discovers the Gothic art in the museums and churches which it visits. He was very noticed with the Living room of 1881 when in addition to the theatrical decapitated head of Charles 1st, he exposed his busts of " Disinherited " out of plaster, enriched by erudite patinas, representatives of marginal and the poor by mixing naturalism and symbolism. This series was supplemented by other busts idiosyncratic out of plaster, wax and finally out of bronze, family members, religious figures and babies strange and disturbing. About 1880 the Louis princess of Scey-Montbeliard born Winnaretta Singer and future Edmond princess of Polignac ordered a monumental door intended to him to close the part of her new private mansion where the manuscript of Parsifal will be preserved which it has just acquired. Intended to be out of enamelled sandstone, the model did not weigh less than twenty two tons, this crushing work will misuse the forces of Carriès and will remain unfinished. The interest of Carriès for the enamelled sandstone and ceramics dates from the World Fair of Paris in 1878, where he saw examples of Japanese works carried out in this matter. He was encouraged in this step by Gauguin, to which he was presented during the winter of 1886-1887 by Ernest Chaplet in the ceramics workshop of this last street Blomet. With the autumn 1888, Carriès had gained a sufficient financial independence to enable him to primarily devote itself to improve the complex process of cooking of the enamelled sandstone pottery: " this male of the porcelain " as it called it. The artist installed a workshop with Saint-Amand-in-Puisaye, for his clay and his potters. Firmly committed itself in its role of artist-craftsman, Carriès created glazes in subtle variations of brown, beige and cream. From 1888-1889, it applied these effects of colors to many versions of its old ceramics portraits and to a repertory increasingly more important of fantastic and grotesque masks, self-portraits and with animals inspired by the Gothic sculpture and Japanese art. It is through these two last influences that the extreme realism of Carriès led to the distortion, the caricature and finally to the grotesque.
He dies of tuberculosis at 39 years in full glory: he is buried in the 12th division of the Cimetière of the Father-Lachaise to Paris. The Petit Palais in Paris preserves a spectacular whole of works of Carriès, given to a large extent by the close friend of the artist, Georges Hoentschel, in 1904.

Recent exposures

Leblanc-Duvernois Museum in Auxerre, March 31st - June 11th, 2007, " Jean-Joseph Carriès ".
Museum from the Petit Palais in Paris, October 1st, 2007 - January 31st, 2008, Jean-Joseph Carriès " Matter of strange the "

Some works.

Evèque , 1883-1889, bronzes, Paris Musée of Orsay.
Bust of Breton Jules (painter) , about 1881, patinated plaster, Paris Museum of the Small-Palate.
Bust of Louise Labé , bronzes, Lyon, Musée of the Art schools.
the Minor of the Loire , patinated plaster, Paris Museum of Orsay.
Fauna, head bronzes of it , enamelled sandstone, Paris Musée of Orsay.
Museum of the Petit Palais, Paris
Jean Carriès by itself , wax vierge.
Infante , enamelled sandstone, 1889-1894.
the show-off , bronzes, before 1892, dedicated to the actor Coquelin junior.
Self-portrait , patinated plaster, Museum of the sandstone, Saint-Amand-in-Puisaye.

Some bonds

Sandstone of Puisaye: Jean carriès

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