Denis Guitton trained as a ceramist. He worked at Royal Copenhagen Porcelaine, took courses at the Beaux Arts Academy of Bayonne and later worked in the atelier of Kurt Onhsorg in Vienna.

Subsequent life abroad—he lived and worked in several European and Middle Eastern countries—allowed him both to perfect his technique and to absorb key elements of these cultures into his art.

He returned to France in 1980 to set up his atelier in the Port des Pecheurs in Biarritz. There he worked as a potter, creating objects with basic forms and pure lines.

He turned to painting at the time of his move to Burgundy in 1990. The natural beauty and seclusion of the Burgundian countryside helped him to develop a unique style, eschewing conventional artistic schools and methods—an originality of both form and matter. Each aesthetic discovery led to further probing and to new discoveries, providing a paradoxical continuity. The result speaks to the heart before speaking to the mind.