Biography / Background

contemporain

Jean-Pierre STRAUB has lived in St-Martin since 1992.

He was born in Strasbourg in the fifties and was exposed to the art of inlaying wood from a very young age in his father’s workshop . At that time wood inlaying was used essentially to create and restore furniture. Having been immersed in this traditional woodworking skill from his early youth, Jean-Pierre very quickly found the need to diversify and broaden his créative skills so he turned to marquetry art.

His undisputable expertise in this field is the result of thirty five years expérience combined with his unique talent and wonderfull ability to draw, which pervades his composition. He has chosen a wast sélection of veneers to work with from all over the world, depending on their qualities..they make up his wood  inlayer’s palette.

In Jean-Pierre’s work we find combinations of dark and light myrtle burl the velvet like texture of red madrona , macassar black, ebony , lemon tree wood or silver birch , tulip tree, perobas , rose Wood , sycomore or walnut, but also palissander wood from the West Indies , maple and amboyna burl, French , Australian or African walnut all worked and
skillfully incorporated … and thus a dream evolves in a pearl like , silky or delicately reflected sky , possibly created with a beautiful poplar burl or chesnut wood…

He selects and combines every pièce, each warm toned colour with such care and taste when creating his unique and hallmarked masterpieces.

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