Jean Bazaine; Stained-Glass Designer

Jean Bazaine, 96, a French artist known for his paintings, mosaics and stained-glass church windows. One of Bazaine’s best-known works was the mosaic pattern covering the ceiling and walls of Paris’ Cluny-La Sorbonne Metro station, a design splashed with pastels and incorporating the signatures of hundreds of writers and thinkers. Born Dec. 21, 1904, in Paris, Bazaine studied literature and fine arts before deciding to become a painter. During his seven-decade career, he designed the windows of many French churches, including St. Severin in Paris. He also created mosaics for the Paris headquarters of the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization and for the French Senate, and wrote several books on art.He described his work as “non-figurative” but rejected the label of abstract artist. “What I paint is the result of an emotion that I feel when faced with nature,” he said. On Sunday evening in his studio in the Paris suburb of Clamart after a day of work, said Jean-Pierre Greff, his biographer.