Jean Lambert-Rucki was born in Krakow in 1888 as Lambert Rucki; his father was a Pole and his mother a Hungarian. Having studied under Józef Mehoffer, he emigrated to France before the First World War, where he gained recognition as a sculptor, maker of applied art and painter. He developed his own artistic language, created as a result of being inspired by his contemporary art as well as Byzantine, medieval and traditional African art. From the 1930s onwards, he became increasingly involved in the creation of sacred art. In response to the need to rebuild churches from war damage after the Second World War, Jean Lambert-Rucki produced, among other things, a sculptural composition on the façade of the Saint-Étienne church in Seltz (Alsace), bombed in 1940 and rebuilt to a design by Jean Viallefond - it depicts the Transfiguration on Mount Tabor . The bas-relief figures of Christ, Moses, Elijah, and the disciples: Peter, James and John, depicted in the artist's characteristic style, are presented against the triangular background of the mountain and the firmament. Above the main entrance to the church, Lambert-Rucki made paintings of figures of saints, flanked by symbols of the Evangelists.