JEAN DERVAL 1925 – 2010, collection of rare early 1950’s ceramics
Rare table sculpture ceramic bowl with ears from the early 1950 signed Jean Derval.
Heavy ceramic lamp with 3 modeled Chinese characters, signed Jean Derval, Vallauris early 1950’s. 27″1/2 high.
Ceramic poelon by Jean Derval, signed, Vallauris mid 1950.
Jean Derval first received an artistic education as a graphic designer and a poster artist at the School of Applied Arts of Rue Thouars in Paris. His vocation for ceramics comes to him fortuitously by creating sandstone services for the Maison of the Christofe silversmith.
In 1945, during his visit to Saint-Amand-en-Puisaye, he learned the profession of ceramist in the Atelier Maubrou-Pigaglio. In this workshop, with Camille Tamil, Turner at Pigaglio, he began to shoot and other ceramic techniques. He then stayed at the terminal, where he met Paul Beyer.
In 1947, Jean Derval joined his comrades Robert Picault and Roger Capron in Vallauris where they created a pottery workshop the previous year. The elegant world of amateurs and artists is found at this time on the French Riviera around Picasso. Jean Derval enters 1949 in the famous Madoura workshop, where he meets the Andalusian master for two years.
In 1951, he founded his own establishment, the portal. Instead of creating a real manufacture, he chooses the difficult way of “unique pieces”.
Derval proposes a repertoire of domestic pottery, mainly inspired by anthropomorphic and zoomorphic, reinterpreted from the lessons of Cubism and abstraction. His Christian fervor also led him to treat religious subjects such as representations of the Virgin and the Saints. Finally, its Mediterranean roots leave an important place in the mythology of ancient Greece.
The end of the 1960 years is marked by an evolution of the taste towards sandstones with austere hues, at the expense of the coloured earthenware affectionnées by Jean Derval. This then he oriented itself towards an architectural ceramic with a vision of sculptor more than Potter.