PROUVÉ, Victor Emile
French painter, designer, and ceramicist. He joined the Gallé workshop while still a boy, initially becoming a ceramics designer in the company of Emile Gallé. He studied painting in Nancy and Paris. He excelled as a painter, exhibiting from 1882 at the Paris Salon. His interest in the decorative arts was most significant: at both the Exposition of the Union Centrale des Arts Décoratifs of 1884 and the Exposition Universelle of 1889 in Paris, he achieved great success with his ceramics. However, he did not abandon painting and exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1893 a striking portrait of his mentor, Emile Gallé.
Although he lived in Paris, he continued to work in Nancy for both Gallé and for Louis Majorelle. He designed marquetry , and he exhibited at the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Lorrains of 1894 in Nancy.
His work is in the Art Nouveau style. He is known as a painter and ceramicist; he also created designs for lace and embroidery, jewellery, glassware, bookbinding and graphics. He had an international reputation due to his designs published in the ‘Journal d’art et industrie.’
After the founding of the Alliance Provinciale des Industries d’Art (later the Ecole de Nancy) in 1901, Prouvé returned to Nancy, taking over after Gallé’s death (1904) as President. From 1919 to 1940, he was Directeur of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Nancy.
