MADO JOLAIN
FOR SALE IN OUR COLLECTION
Mado Jolain was born in Paris in 1921. Under the Occupation, she joined the Paris School of Decorative Arts and the drawing and sculpture workshops of La Grande Chaumière. There she met René Legrand who turned more towards painting. Sensitized by the craze for ceramics which began before the war, Mado Jolain carried out her first attempts as a potter in the kiln of a utilitarian ceramics workshop, rue d'Alesia.
In 1946, Mado Jolain and René Legrand married and moved to Montrouge where René set up his painting studio. The ceramic workshop is not far away, in the 14th arrondissement. René Legrand shoots their first plays. Popular art, very popular in the decorative arts of the post-war period, was a great source of inspiration for them. They visit the Dijon Museum and the Museum of Popular Art and Traditions where they appreciate the shapes of utilitarian pottery.
In 1948, creations from the Mado Jolain workshop were exhibited for the first time at the Salon des Ateliers d'Art Décoratifs and at L'objet 1948, a landmark exhibition after the war, organized at the Galerie Denise Breteau, rue Bonaparte , Paris.
In 1950, the Mado Jolain ceramic workshop moved to Montrouge. René Legrand devoted himself more and more to painting, Klaus Schultze succeeded him in filming the creations of the ceramic workshop until 1956. The entire production of the Atelier Mado Jolain was filmed, then worked, developed in different ways , from rotated shapes. Member of the union chamber of Ceramists and Workshops of France, present at all the Salons of Decorative Art Workshops, Mado Jolain frequents other ceramists of his time: Jacques Blin, president of the union chamber, Fernand Lacaf, Roger Capron, Robert Deblander, Pol Chambost, Les Argonautes, Norbert and Jeanne Pierlot, Jacqueline Lerat… She essentially creates ceramics for the home and the table with enameled decorations that become more and more stylized over the years.
In 1955 Denise Majorel organized a Mado Jolain exhibition in her Galerie La Demeure-Rive gauche, Place Saint-André des arts. Mado Jolain ceramics are sold in decoration and tableware stores but also at the Primavera du Printemps boutique run by Colette Guéden. His work is the subject of numerous citations in magazines such as Arts et decoration (1952) and Mobilier et Decoration (1949-1953-1955-1956).
In 1958, Mado Jolain settled with his family and the ceramic workshop on the banks of the Marne, in Champigny. Her ceramics evolve into models for the garden, the terrace, enamelled or in natural terracotta. The shapes become refined, gain strength, the enamelling becomes unified, the streaks and perforations become the only decorations made on the pieces after turning.
Among the turners who will collaborate in this place with Mado Jolain, Michel Lanos is the one who stayed the longest and who participated in the creation of the series of cache pots and a multitude of spice jars which brought the workshop to life.
In 1964, Mado Jolain traveled to Japan where she visited Hamada's workshop, and to England in the footsteps of Bernard Leach. Despite these visits to the post-war Masters of ceramics, Mado Jolain will remain inspired mainly by the research of great architects such as Le Corbusier, Jean Prouvé, Alvar Aalto.
In 1963, she exhibited her garden ceramics at the Galerie du Siècle, a gallery in Saint-germain des Prés. With garden ceramics, Mado Jolain is moving towards more monumental creations. In 1963, she created a claustra wall for the Auteuil greenhouses on an order from Daniel Collin, landscape architect at the Gardens Department of the city of Paris.
In 1966 her exhibition at the Folklore gallery in Lyon was the last of his activity as a ceramist, which ended in 1970.
