Pitcher

Ceramic pitcher signed Jean Brisy circa 1960
Jean Brisy was destined for a musical career as a pianist. In 1940, the declaration of war took him away from Lille and he stayed with his winegrower grandparents in Chenonceaux. On his return, he decided to enter the Beaux-Arts in Lille where he followed four years of academic courses and turned to pottery. In the company of his friend Boleslaw Danikowski, whom he met at the Beaux-Arts in Lille, he trained as a potter in Saint-Laurent-les-Mâcon and shared his first workshops2. In particular, at the beginning of the 1950s, he occupied the ruins of the Moulin des Loups earthenware factory in Orchies, after its bombardment. There he finds loaves of clay, bags of enamels and a ruined oven. They are then given permission to settle there to work. Danikowski lives in these rubble while Jean Brisy lives in Lille, looking for outlets for their productions. In 1955, he created his own workshop in the cellars of number 61, rue de la Monnaie in Lille, where he worked until his death. In 1957, he founded with Roger Frezin, Pierre Olivier, Lyse Oudoire, Jean Parsy and Claude Vallois, L'Atelier de la Monnaie, an artistic group that would bring about a real revolution in the world of art in the Nord-Pas-de- Calais 3. Very early on, he turned to sculpture while pursuing his profession as a potter to which he remained very attached 4.