Touret, Jean

(1916 - 2004)

Jean Touret (1916 - 2004) began a career as a painter and then turned towards woodcarving. All his life he continued his aesthetic research by experimenting unconventional use of a variety of materials: wood, paper, copper, zinc, bronze, plexiglass, ceramics and concrete.

In 1950 he started the collective Artisans de Marolles, in the town of the same name, where craftsmen from different fields worked together; carpenters, an ironworker, basket maker and ceramist. Touret was the artistic director. In the early 1960s, Touret became more occupied with his sculptural work and commissions for churces, leaving more responsibility to the other artisans, until he resigned in 1964.