Benjamin & Georges Pelletier

From Brussels to Paris

Georges Pelletier was a French ceramic artist born on 9 October 1938 in Brussels, in the municipality of Schaerbeek. He began his ceramic training at the age of twelve at the École du Pioulier in Vence, founded by Célestin Freinet, where the apprenticeship belonged to a free and modern vision of art for its time.

In 1953, at fifteen, he arrived in Paris. He discovered exhibitions, museums and galleries. Between 1954 and 1956 he trained in drawing at the Académie Charpentier and prepared the entrance exam for the École des métiers d'art, which he joined in 1955. Curious, he took in the advice of older classmates and occasionally went to Fernand Léger's studio, where he showed his work to the head of atelier.

The hand, the clay, the architecture

His training continued at the workshop of Claude Pantzer, where Charlotte Perriand came to select ceramics for her projects. During school holidays he joined the Poteries d'Accolay, where he created successful new models and met the ceramist Raphaël Giarusso, with whom he later shared a workshop for a year. There he refined a personal vocabulary: ceramics is not only an object, but a material able to dialogue with space.

Lighting, suns and unique pieces

In 1961, Georges Pelletier opened his first Paris workshop. Spotted by Roche Bobois, he developed lighting, sculptures, lamps and unique pieces that brought ceramics into the language of interior architecture, supplying the Bobois lighting collections from 1961 to 1973.

Wall lights, suns, mirrors, totems and sculptural objects became a vocabulary of their own. Decoration was never merely ornamental: it structured the object, accompanied its volume and gave each piece an almost architectural presence.