Jean-Louis Avril

Jean-Louis Avril was born in 1935 in Saint-Nazaire. He received a diploma in Architecture from the Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1964. He continued his training in the workshop of Paul Herbe and Edouard Albert where he listened closely to the advice of fellow associate Jean Prouvé. Married to the daughter of a cartoonist, he built a reputation on his transformation of the cartoon "le Celloderme". Jean-Louis plastered furniture with images of this cartoon as early as 1966. For Andrée Putman in 1967, he decorated a clothing store in Saint Tropez with cartoon-covered furniture which received buzz in the magazine Elle and other media attention. It was the beginning of his fabrication of furniture for adults and children, produced and distributed by Marty-Lac from 1967 to 1973.