Born in Paris (18th arrondissement) on December 27, 1889, died in August 1952 in Brest, Adolphe Jean Lachaud was a painter, engraver, ceramist and decorator established in Brittany.
With a bachelor's degree in literature, he attended the Condorcet high school in Paris. He discovered Brittany in 1908, during family stays in Pont-Aven. He was then a student at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-arts and then at the Académie Julian.
Mobilized into the Air Force in 1914, he went to the front with the 44th Field Aerostation Company. He was then seconded as an instructor to the American Army. He received the Combatant's Cross, the Verdun Commemorative Medal and the Croix de Guerre.
Demobilized in 1919, he settled permanently in Brittany, first in Nevez near PontAven until 1934. This is where his brother Jacques Lachaud, an architect, lived, who bought and restored a mill there.
His first woodcuts were exhibited in 1921 at the Salon d'Automne in Paris, of which he was a member, as well as the Salon de l'art française independant. In 1923, he produced his first ceramics at the Henriot earthenware factories in Quimper, under the Saint Corentin cut fish brand.
He married Eugénie Mahévas in 1929 then Anna Consolat in 1941. In 1933, he abandoned the name Adolphe and kept only his middle name Jean; his works are now signed Jean Lachaud.
He moved to Quimper in 1934 alongside his architect brother Jacques Lachaud (1893-1973), one of the founders
of Breton architectural regionalism. He created the Quimper Artistic Union.
Appointed curator at the Brest museum in 1936, he organized the rescue of the collections at the start of the 1939-45 war. Also named director of the Brest School of Fine Arts, it was as a teacher and curator that he ended his life and career in 1952.
