Jean Touret

Jean Touret (1916-2004)  has gone down in history notably as the creator and artistic director of the Ateliers of Marolles. This cooperative of craftsmen and artisans manufactured furniture with pure forms that is now highly sought after in the world of design. He is also known for having created the monumental high altar in bronze installed in 1981 for Notre Dame cathedral in Paris.

At 23, Touret was taken prisoner at the battle of Dunkirk and sent to Germany. Interned in the Ore Mountains, Touret was enlisted to help the old lumberjacks whose sons had gone to the front. Jean Touret admired their simplicity, their relationship with nature, and their knowledge of the forest. At their side, he learned to observe and love the trees. He managed to escape in 1945 and made it to the American lines on foot, equipped with just a map and compass.

Touret returned home determined to devote his existence to art. He settled in Marolles, a small town in the French countryside where he met many local artisans, including a weaver, a blacksmith, and a carpenter, and their knowledge of ancient techniques fascinated him.  For Jean Touret, nothing was more noble than to work an ancestral material with one's hands. He initiated the Ateliers of Marolles, for whom he would draw  designs for tables, lamps and buffets which were then created by the artisans in the surrounding area. They were an immediate sensation, a true phenomenon of the region. Artists and intellectuals alike flocked to Marolles. But Jean Touret’s spirit was drawn elsewhere: he began to sculpt wood, and this is his revelation. Of all his sculptures and wall works, Touret rarely displayed any in public, and he never sold a single one. 

Jean-Marie Lustiger, future Archbishop of Paris, was a great admirer of Touret's work and faith, as well as his uncommon integrity and honesty. Lustiger commissioned Jean Touret to create the high altar of the Notre Dame cathedral. The artist, always humble, never did anything halfway: his artisanal furniture brought Marolles into the history of design, and his liturgical sculptures led him to Notre Dame. His career as a sculptor remained discreet but no less intense.

The first major exhibition of Touret’s work, Resurrection, was presented at the Galerie Gastou in 2024, and the Galerie continues to be one of the most significant proponents of his creations.