Born in Brehat. France. Worked and lived in Nice, Saint Maxime, Vallauris

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In 1940s Jean de Lespinasse moving to French Riviera and with his wife setting up a local ceramic business SOCFRA which would produce ceramics from the end of the 1940s till 1980s. 

He befriended local ceramists Roger Capron and his wife Jacotte, the ceramist of Picasso Madoura, Robert Picault and Georges Tardieu.

The SOCFRA  ceramic workshop was situated in Cimiez in Nice and employed around ten people. 

But  though the workshop was not geographically in Vallauris, Lespinasse was renting out shops during the summer season in Sainte-Maxime, in Saint-Paul-de-Vence and in Vallauris. 

The Vallauris ceramics was high regarded at that time, so Lespinasse were often marking his creations as “made in Vallauris”.

Twice a year, the ceramic collections from SOCFRA studio were presented at the Lyon fair and at the Salon des Arts du Feu in Paris today known as the Ateliers d’Art.

Jean de Lespinasse died on 7 June 1979

His workshop was closed in the early 1980s.