La femme fleur (flower lady)
Aubusson tapestry woven in the Four workshop.
N°EA/1.
Circa 1980.
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At the beginning of the 1980’s , Bezombes returned to tapestry with “Bally” (see Audap-Mirabaud auction 19.11.12, lot n° 8) and this cartoon (see also what is doubtless the original drawing in the Pillon auction 4.12.2005 n° 245), both are particularly dreamlike and strongly influenced by graphic art and illustration techniques. “La femme fleur” (flower lady) is reproduced in the « Tapisserie d’Aubusson” file edited by the Guéret Chamber of Commerce and Industry in the beginning of the 1980’s to illustrate the technical mastery of the weavers of Aubusson.Roger Bezombes was a proponent of monumental art from the beginning. He received numerous commissions for tapestries on behalf of the state which were woven first at the Gobelins and then at Aubusson, particularly with the Hamot workshop whose dyers were able to produce for him wools to match exactly the colours used for his cartons (which he painted himself to scale). In 1952-53, he produced a monumental set (300 m2) for the pavilion of the French colonies at the Cité Universitaire de Paris. He abandoned the weaving technique at the end of the 1950’s in favour of hangings made of assembled fabrics.
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Cadmée
Aubusson tapestry woven by the Picaud workshop. With signed label, n°1/4. 1970.Loewer designed his first cartoon in 1953 ; his early works are first figurative before turning to abstraction (like Matégot) which is exclusively geometric in Loewer’s case. He designed over 180 cartoons, most of which were woven by his friend, Raymond Picaud. Only one example of this tapestry was woven according to the catalogue raisonné, « Cadmée » is representative of the artist’s style around 1970 where the recurrent design motif is the square used in superpositions.Bibliography : Claude Loewer, l’évasion calculée : travaux de 1939 à 1993, catalogue raisonné des tapisseries de 1953 à 1974, Sylvio Acatos, Charlotte Hug, Walter Tschopp and Marc-Olivier Wahler, Artcatos, 1994, n°118 -
Le royal (King pheasant)
Edmond Dubrunfaut can be considered as the great 20th century renovator of the Belgian tapestry tradition. He founded a weavers’ workshop in Tournai as early as 1942, then, in 1947, created the Centre de Rénovation de la Tapisserie de Tournai. He produced for various Belgian workshops (Chaudoir, de Wit,...) numerous cartoons destined notably to adorn Belgian embassies throughout the world. Moreover, Dubrunfaut was a teacher of monumental art forms at the Academie des Beaux-Arts de Mons from 1947 to 1978 and then, in 1979, contributed to the creation of the Fondation de la tapisserie, des arts du tissu et des arts muraux de Tournai, a veritable heritage centre for the art of the tapestry in Wallonie. His style, characterised by figuration, strong colour contrasts, draws direct inspiration from nature and animal life (as with Perrot, for example, this artist has a net predilection for birdlife). Both the subject and the bright blue background are an echo of Perrot’s work. Also characteristic of Dubrunfaut are the feather-leaves : the animal clothes itself in vegetation.Aubusson tapestry woven in the Simone André workshop. With signed label. Circa 1965. -
Coq sabreur (fighting cock)
Lurçat’s artistic production was immense : it is however his role as the renovator of the art of tapestry design which ensures his lasting renown. As early as 1917, he started producing works on canvas, then in the 20’s and 30’s, he worked with Marie Cuttoli. His first collaboration with the Gobelins workshop dates back to 1937, at the same time he discovered the tapestry of the Apocalypse which was essential in his decision to devote himself to tapestry design. He first tackled the technical aspects with François Tabard, then on his installation at Aubusson during the war, he established his technique : broad point, a simplified palette, outlined cartoons with colours indicated by pre-ordained numbers. A huge production then follows (over 1000 cartoons) amplified by his desire to include his painter friends, the creation of the A.P.C.T. (Association des Peintres-Cartonniers de Tapisserie) and the collaboration with the art gallery La Demeure and Denise Majorel, and then by his role as a tireless advocate for the medium around the world. His tapestries reveal a pictorial world which is specifically decorative, with a very personal symbolic iconography : cosmogony (the sun, the planets, the zodiac, the four elements…) stylised vegetation, fauna (rams, cocks, butterflies, chimera …) standing out against a background without perspective (voluntarily different from painting) and, in his more ambitious work, designed as an invitation to share in a poetic (he sometimes weaves quotations into his tapestries) and philosophical (the grand themes are broached from the wartime period onwards) vision whose climax is the “Chant du Monde” (Song of the World) (Jean Lurçat Museum , ancien hôpital Saint Jean, Angers) which remained unfinished at his death. In the long and varied genealogy of Lurçat's representations of the cock, this « fighting cock » (possible tautology?) is a late production (1961), but it is in fact a partial (and reversed) reproduction of « Guerrier » (warrior) a much earlier piece, which explains the presence of tricolour elements typical of Lurçat's productions of the war years. Another copy of this piece is kept at the Cité de la Tapisserie in Aubusson. Bibliography : Tapisseries de Jean Lurçat 1939-1957, Pierre Vorms Editeur, 1957 Exhibition Catalogue Lurçat, 10 ans après, Musée d’Art moderne de la ville de Paris, 1976 Exhibition catalogue Les domaines de Jean Lurçat, Angers, Musée Jean Lurçat et de la tapisserie contemporaine, 1986 Symposium Jean Lurçat et la renaissance de la tapisserie in Aubusson, Aubusson, Musée départemental de la tapisserie 1992 Exhibition Catalogue Dialogues avec Lurçat, Musées de Basse-Normandie, 1992 Exhibition catalogue Jean Lurçat, Donation Simone Lurçat, Académie des Beaux-Arts, 2004 Jean Lurçat, le chant du monde Angers 2007 Gérard Denizeau, Denise Majorel, une vie pour la tapisserie, Aubusson, Musée départemental de la tapisserie, ill. p.59 Gérard Denizeau, Jean Lurçat, Liénart, 2013, ill. fig. 154 Exhibition Catalogue Jean Lurçat, Meister der französischen Moderne, Halle, Kunsthalle Exhibition Catalogue Jean Lurçat au seul bruit du soleil, Paris, galerie des Gobelins, 2016Tapestry woven in the Picaud workshop. With signed label. 1961. -
Source claire (clear spring)
Aubusson tapestry woven in the Bonjour workshop. With signed label, n°3/4. Circa 1960.It was in 1953 that Jean Picart le Doux proposed to Chaye to become his assistant and encouraged him to design tapestry cartoons : he would produce numerous bucolic cartoons, but also views of Normandy (Mont Saint Michel, Honfleur, regattas,…) whence he came.A classic cartoon in the naturalistic vein of this particular artist, who made a speciality of enclosures, hedges and riverbanks with animals. -
Garrigue de printemps (spring garrigue)
Debiève designed numerous cartoons in a style that is typical of the 1940’s (« le remailleur de filets” the mender of nets, “le potier” the potter,...) although the vast majority were printed on fabric. A notably smaller number of his designs were produced as tapestries in Aubusson and his cartoons are close to the aesthetic of his paintings inspired by Provence.Aubusson tapestry woven by the Jean Laurent workshop. With label, n°3/8. 1976. -
Paysage bleu aux papillons (blue landscape with butterflies)
Elie Grekoff, whose aesthetic is similar to that of Lurçat, designed over 300 cartons : here we find evidence of the artist’s evolution from the 1960’s onwards, as the human or animal figures disappear from his work. The recurrent theme is one where a heavenl_ bod_ (the sun, the moon) appears half-hidden behind foliage.Tapestry woven by the ATA (Atelier de Tapisserie d'Angers). With signed label, n°1/4. Circa 1970. -
Le paon (the peacock)
Tapestry woven by the Baudonnet workshop. With label. 1959.Lurçat approached Saint-Saëns, originally a painter of murals, in 1940. And during the war the latter produced the first of his allegorical masterpieces, tapestries reflecting indignation, combat, resistance : “les Vierges folles (the foolish virgins), “Thésée et le Minotaure” (Theseus and the Minotaur). At the end of the war, as a natural development he joined up with Lurçat, whose convictions he shared (concerning a simplified palette, outlined cartoons with colours indicated by pre-ordained numbers, and the specific nature of tapestry design…) at the A.P.C.T. (Association des Peintres-cartonniers de Tapisserie). His universe, where the human figure, stretched, elongated, ooccupies an important place (particularly when compared to his companions Lurçat or Picart le Doux), pivots around traditional themes : woman, the Commedia dell’arte, Greek mythology… refined by the brilliance of the colours and the simplification of the layout. His work would evolve later, in the 1960’s, towards cartoons of a more lyrical design, almost abstract where elemental and cosmic forces would dominate. The number and variety of animals used in his tapestries by Saint-Saëns is not so rich as others of his contemporaries such as Lurçat, Perrot or Dom Robert, principally known for his peacocks. Here the use, as if off the ground, of a similar motif (despite the fact that it more ressembles a cockerel than a peacock) illustrates the variety of solutions employed by the painter-cartonniers of the period. Bibliography : Exhibition catalogue Saint-Saëns, galerie La Demeure, 1970 Exhibition catalogue Saint-Saëns, the tapestries, Aubusson, Musée départemental de la Tapisserie, 1987 Exhibition catalogue Marc Saint-Saëns, tapestries, 1935-1979, Angers, Musée Jean Lurçat et de la Tapisserie Contemporaine 1997-1998
