The twin brothers ROBERT and JEAN CLOUTIER are French ceramists and sculptors with a long and prolific career.
The Cloutier brothers worked in a variety of materials, from ceramics and glazed earthenware to porcelain, stoneware, plaster and terracotta.
Their work occupies a unique place in French ceramics of the second half of the 20th century. Les Frères Cloutier drew on the expertise they had acquired at Lafourcade, Georges Jouve and Pol Chambost, skills they would continue to apply in their own Atelier, which opened in 1955. Their work, part of the revival of French ceramics, is more often utilitarian and decorative, comprising crockery, pots, vases, lamps, ashtrays and pocket trays; but it also includes interior architectural elements such as clerestory walls, glazed tiles, tables and more.
Through their dreamlike universe in constant motion, the work of the Cloutier brothers, which was initially influenced by Georges Jouve and Marie Vassilieff, would eventually move more in a decorative direction towards the end of their career.
Throughout their career, the Cloutier brothers escaped fashions and changes in their discipline, exploring their style, which art critics describe as “naïve, humorous, poetic, dreamlike, mythological, biomorphic, anthropomorphic, anthropozoomorphic”. In the 1960s, they developed not only new firing techniques, but also a red enamel, “Rouge Cloutier”, which became an international success and a trademark of the Frères Cloutier. Their creations are recognized in France and abroad, notably in Japan and the United States.