Jean-Michel Cazin (1869-1917) was the son of influential French Realist painter Jean-Charles Cazin (1841-1901) and sculptor, painter, and ceramist Marie Cazin (1844-1924). Deeply immersed in the artistic life from an early age, he went on to become a prolific artist himself, working in ceramics, painting, sculpture, and engraving. Jean-Michel studied under his father who was most famous as a painter, but also worked as a ceramic artist and engraver, as well as a professor and curator at the Musée de Beaux-Arts in Tours. Jean-Michel first exhibited at the Salon of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts in 1897. In 1900 he opened his own studio in Paris, where he created stoneware vessels with vegetal relief decoration of leaves, fruits, or textured like tree bark. Although his early work is decorated with colored glazes, his later pieces tend to be unglazed. Jean-Michel Cazin was killed in an explosion during WWI. He and his wife Berthe were having lunch aboard the destroyer “La Rafale” anchored at the dock Gambetta de Boulogne, when the torpedo aimed at a submarine exploded. Today, works by the Cazin family are housed in the Musée Jean-Charles Cazin in Samer.
