It’s following the last wave of urbanisation shortly after the second world war that Jean Roger leaves his native village of Bazeille, Lot et Garonne in 1947. He is 20 years old and only has a formation of pottery turner. Once arrived in Paris he associates himself in order to create a pottery workshop with the money gathered from the sale of the furnitures of his native home.
Jean Roger establishes himself at the 4th floor of the previous house of Henri IV’s guards, the workshop there is gifted with an oven from 1910 operated by a wooden beam. He names this place “the dovecote” because of its height. It will be the epicenter of the first years of sucess of Jean Roger, marked by hardwork and the weight of the bag of earth carried on his back up the many stairs of the building.
During 5 years Jean Roger makes his way through his rivals, and it’s in 1953 that he bets on originality in a world in which the craftsmen were hardly differenciated. He creates what will later become a sucesss : the animal collections, the “nails vase”, the chalices or the “orengeade” table-ware, all in a very personal style. This style will inspire the famous Hans Knoll in the making of his tables and chairs. A few months later the ceramist attends a show at “les Folies Bergères” for which his uncle had paintend the decor. It’s by observing the lightness of the dancer’s costumes in goose feathers that an idea sparks up. He decides to create models in earthenware which takes direct inspiration from the dresses in order to lighten up the original heaviness of the material. This is how the first “tulip” and “flame” candle holders were born as well as the “urchin” vase and the “cabbage” tableware.
Decorative objects in the shape of palm trees and pineapples as well as lamps and vases are the creations of his first exotic collection which found a huge sucess. It’s a few years later that he creates the famous green frog, taking inspiration from ancestral chinese sculptures which he will later decline in various sizes and colors.
