Jean Lurçat started his artistic career in Paris in 1912 where he took residence with his brother André. He enrolled at the Académie Colarossi, then at the workshop of the engraver, Bernard Naudin. He met painters such as Matisse, Cézanne, Renoir; his friends included Rainer Maria Rilke, Antoine Bourdelle, and Elie Faure. Lurçat and three associates founded the Feuilles de Mai (The leaves of May), a journal of art in which these celebrities participated. He then became an apprentice of the painter Jean-Paul Lafitte with whom he had an exhibition at La faculté des sciences de Marseille. His first journey to Italy was interrupted in August by the declaration of war. Back in France, Lurçat joined the infantry, but was evacuated on 15 November after falling ill. During his recovery to health, in 1915, he practised painting and lithography. In July 1916, he returned to the front, but was evacuated once again due to injury. He never returned to the front. In September, his art was put on exhibition in Zürich. Influenced by Cubism and as a founder of the art review ‘Les Feuilles de Mai’, in which essays of painting doctrine were published, he spoke up for the avant-garde movement. A trip to Berlin and Munich in 1920 turned Lurçat’s eye to Expressionism. His extensive travels, to Spain in 1923 and to the Middle East, North Africa and the Sahara from 1924 to 1929, left another important and lasting influence on his painted work. In 1937, Lurçat turned his interest in tapestry-making into a professional business after signing contracts with the Beauvais weaving factories. He became world-renowned as an innovator of the medium.

Lurçat's artistic eye simultaneously wandered towards a multitude of other media, including engraving, book illustrations and - most notably - ceramics. During the 1950's, Lurçat worked away abundantly at Firmin Bauby's Mas Sant-Vicens ceramic works in the Southern French city of Perpignan. Lurçat's association with the Saint-Vicens workshop gave it an international dimension, and other artists such as Picard le Doux and Marc Saint-Saëns followed to work there.

Lurçat's ceramics proved popular and were shown in 1952 at the Maison de la Pensée française, Paris, in 1963 at the Hannover Museum in Hannover, in 1964 at the Musée des Arts décoratifs in Paris. in 1965 at the landmark exhibition Ceramiche Lurça-Picasso at La Bussola Gallery in Turin, and in 2004 at the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris.