Édouard Cazaux
One of a family of potters from the Landes region, Édouard Cazaux was apprenticed at a pipe factory at Tarbes in circa 1903. He went to work in a small Paris factory in 1907 and subsequently studied design at Mont-de-Marsan. In 1912 he received a grant that enabled him to study sculpture and ceramics. After 1918, he married and settled in Varenne, near Paris. There he produced earthenware and stoneware pieces, sometimes monumental in size. His painted and modeled decoration was most often inspired by religious and mythological subjects.
Édouard Cazaux studied at l'école des Beaux-Arts and de l'école de Sèvres. After WW I, he created a monument to the dead of Biarritz. In 1923 he served as the secretary of the Salon d'Automne de céramique. A year later he showed a remarkable sculpture at the Salon des Tuileries. But in 1929 he turned from sculpture to ceramics and soon became a master of stoneware with copper red glazes and other difficult effects inspired by ancient Chinese and Egyptian works. In 1937, Cazaux was decorated with the Légion of Honor. He continued to win prizes and was further honored when museums began to collect his work. A school was named for him in Biarritz, the town where he is buried.