Jean Pascaud was born in Rouen on January 25, 1903. He is an Engineer of Arts and Manufactures and has a degree in law.
Despite his technically and legally oriented foundational education, he turned towards applied arts immediately after leaving school and completed his first projects under the direction of Auguste Bluysen, who at the time, was the President of the Society of Modern Architects.
A member of the Autumn Salon, the National Fine Arts, and the Decorative Artists, he participated in their events but particularly exhibited regularly at the Salon of Decorative Artists and then at the Home Arts from 1931 onwards. He received the Grand Prize at the 1937 International Exhibition and participated in all the major exhibitions abroad. Apart from architectural and decorative ordinances, noteworthy among Jean Pascaud's works are the monument of the Landhaus Square in Innsbruck (45-48) and that of the Arlberg Pass (46). Jean Pascaud furnished the office of Mr. Jean Zay and the waiting room at the Ministry of National Education in 38, then subsequently carried out personal work for the same minister.
He received orders from the City of Paris for the 37 exhibition - and for the National Furniture in 44, 46 and 48; significant work was entrusted to him in 38-39, then continued in 50-51 by the Administration of the Autonomous Amortization Fund; for the Legations of Sweden, Czechoslovakia and the French Embassy in Mexico; since 51 for the High Commission of France in Saar and at the Château de Rambouillet, the arrangement of the François 1st Tower; he also designed the interior architecture of the Saint-Gobain Company for its new building on Avenue Matignon.
Finally, in addition to numerous private installations, Jean Pascaud contributed to the layout of different ocean liners: "Normandie", "Pasteur" and recently "LAOS" and carried out the interior decoration of six oil tankers. Jean Pascaud has been a Knight of the Legion of Honor since 1952. Thanks to his initial training, Jean Pascaud approaches the problems he has dedicated over 20 years of his activities to, from a particular angle with a unique independence of mind.
Although he devotes all his care to furniture creation, it's architectural ordinance that first interests him. He consistently collaborates with architects and it's in terms of the space and volumes they need to animate or serve that he composes the furniture and decorative elements. His desks, pedestal tables, or dressers, stripped, rectilinear, rigorously designed, somewhat massive in form but logically balanced, demand execution refinements, or a judicious use of pure colors, a well-placed sumptuousness. Jean Pascaud likes to break the uniformity of large flat surfaces of generally precious and dark wood, by play of background, fine geometric networks or even copper inlays of a free and very modern graphic design inspired by the skillful technique to which the cabinetmaker-sculptor Boulle gave his name.
Even though he has mainly created luxury installations, the problem of serial furniture, of which he presented a significant set at the Home Arts Salon in 1954, holds his attention, and it's as an Engineer as much as a Decorator that Jean Pascaud strives to bring valid solutions from both the aesthetic and industrial production points of view.
