Marchands (Traders)
Aubusson tapestry woven by the Four workshop.
With signed label, n°EA2/2.
Circa 1980.
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Toffoli produced a large number of tapestries in collaboration with the Robert Four workshop from 1976 onwards, designing several hundred cartoons. In them we find post-cubist transparent effects which are characteristic of the artist, as indeed are the subjects treated. Thus Toffoli’s tapestries do not differ from his painting : travelling for inspiration, here he illustrates scenes observed during his travels in South America.
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Les 6 mots du secret (the 6 words of secrecy)
In 1987, Texier received a commission for the Human Rights tapestries ensemble to mark the bicentenary of the Revolution. The choice was unexpected, as the artist, still young, had never before produced tapestry cartoons. This commission brought together the Aubusson workshops that were still in operation at the time, with the seven tapestries covering a total of more than 130 woven sq.m. with literal quotations (the tables of the declaration are reproduced identically to the engraving from the revolutionary period), oscillating objects, signs, texts, etc. Texier went on to provide cartoons for both the Manufactures Nationales (a series of three tapestries and a carpet) and Aubusson. Our cartoon incorporates the visual symbols, scattered texts, and traces characteristic of the artist's graphic and visual universe, which constitute, to quote him, “maps where [he] introduces guiding elements” in order to reveal the eponymous « secret » to us. Bibliography : La Suite des Droits de l’Homme, Niort, 1989Aubusson tapestry woven by the Pinton workshop. With signed label, n°1/1. 2001. -
Le lion (the lion)
Aubusson tapestry woven by the Picaud workshop. With label signed by the artist's widow, n°2/6. Circa 1980. Jean Picart le Doux is one of the foremost figures in the renaissance of the art of tapestry. His earliest contributions to the field date back to 1943 when he designed cartoons for the passenger ship “la Marseillaise”. A close associate of Lurçat, whose theories he would adopt (limited palette, numbered cartoons…), he was a founding member of the A.P.C.T. (Association des Peintres-cartonniers de Tapisserie), and soon after, a teacher at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs. The state gave him several commissions most of them at the Aubusson workshop, and some at the Gobelins : the most spectacular of these being for the University of Caen, the Theatre in Le Mans, the passenger ship France or the Prefecture of the Creuse département … In as much as Picart le Doux’s aesthetic is close to that of Lurçat, so also is his inspiration and his subject matter, although in a register which is more decorative than symbolic, where he brings together heavenly bodies (the sun, the moon, the stars…), the elements, nature (wheat, vines, fish, birds…), man, literary quotation … “The Lion” reproduces, in small format, one of the figures, like heraldry, from the 1961 “Cortège d’Orphée” [Orpheus’ Procession]. Bibliography : Marthe Belle-Joufray, Jean Picart le Doux, Publications filmées d’art et d’histoire, 1966 Maurice Bruzeau, Jean Picart le Doux, Murs de soleil, Editions Cercle d’art, 1972 Exhibition Catalogue, Jean Picart le Doux, tapisseries, Musée de Saint-Denis, 1976 Exhibition Catalogue Jean Picart le Doux, Boulogne sur Mer, Bibliothèque municipale, 1978 Exhibition Catalogue Jean Picart le Doux, Paris,Musée de la Poste, 1980 Exhibition Catalogue Jean Picart le Doux, Abbaye Saint Jean d’Orbestier, 1992 -
Oiseau de Midi (bright birds)
Aubusson tapestry woven by the Legoueix workshop. With signed label, n°EA. 1969.Wogensky met Lurçat as early as 1939, but he only entered into collaboration with him after the war, designing his first cartoon in 1945 (already titled « les oiseaux » (the birds)) and soon after joined the A.P.C.T. (Association des Peintres-Cartonniers de Tapisserie). A teacher of mural art at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Appliqués in Paris, Wogensky designed 159 cartoons up until the 1980’s, most of them woven by Legoueix. “Wool is like us in that it is warm-blooded. It is comforting and reassuring. A wall of wool, is a living, more human wall” (quoted in Robert Guinot “la Tapisserie d’Aubusson et de Felletin”, Lucien Souny, 2009). This is the artist’s credo which would invigorate his creativity, finding expression in lyrical flights (literally, as ornithological themes, often highly stylised, were among his favourites. Some cartoons, particularly at the end of the 1970’s are resolutely abstract), in cartoons inspired by “Natural History” (a title he gave to one of his works in 1961), or in cosmic themes, using constellations or other natural elements. “I always took pleasure in working on a large scale” as he also confided in Robert Guinot. If this cartoon appears modest in comparison with other official commissions created by Wogensky (University of Strasbourg, the Senate conference hall...) its subject allows for an impression of spatial expansion, via the elan of the elliptic bird-like motifs, energized by the chromatic flattening effect of the bright red background. Bibliography : Cat. Expo. 25 ans de tapisserie française 1944, Paris, manufacture des Gobelins, 1969, n°33 Exhibition Catalogue La Tapisserie et l’Espace, Châteauroux, couvent des Cordeliers, 1978, n°21 Exhibition catalogue Robert Wogensky, Aubusson, Musée départemental de la tapisserie, 1989, illustrated p.34 Exhibition catalogue Robert Wogensky, Angers, Musée Jean Lurçat et de la Tapisserie Contemporaine, 1989, ill. p.20 -
Le périscope (the periscope)
“First of all I like wool, its warmth...In tapestry, I can use both colour and graphic design” wrote the artist in “Sculpture”, Paris, 1968. Better known as a sculptor, Gilioli would design his first cartoon in 1949, before winning in 1957 the Tapestry Prize at the Biennial in Sao Paulo ; in all he designed around a hundred tapestries, woven by the Pinton and Picaud workshops. From the end of the 1960’s onwards Gilioli’s cartoons are exclusively geometrical, use two or three colours and evolve in parallel with the forms employed in other media. Our tapestry reproduces, on a smaller scale, the mosaic designed a few years earlier by the artist for the building “Le Périscope,” a project by Novarina in the 13th arrondissement of Paris. Bibliography : Exhibition catalogue Gilioli, Paris, Galerie la Demeure, 1971 Exhibition catalogue Des sculpteurs et la Tapisserie, Angers, Musée Jean Lurçat et de la Tapisserie Contemporaine, 1995 Exhibition catalogue Gilioli Tapisseries, Paris, Fondation Dina Vierny, 1997Aubusson tapestry woven in the Pinton workshop. With signed label, n°1/6. 1971. -
Bouquet papillon (bunch butterfly)
Aubusson tapestry woven in the Legoueix workshop. With signed label, n°4/6. Circa 1980.From illustration to tapestry, there's only one (big) step to take - remember that Dom Robert was an illuminator! It was he, and Madeleine David, one of the co-directors of the La Demeure gallery, with whom she was close, that encouraged Jacqueline Duhême to take up the medium: preceded by her reputation as an “imagière” (cf. bibliography), illustrating Prévert, Eluard and Druon, she devoted herself to tapestry from 1967 (when she took classes with Tourlière at the ENAD in Aubusson, and became an enthusiast of numbered cartoons) to 1981, with La Demeure even devoting a solo exhibition to her in 1976. Her world, inspired by medieval mille-fleurs tapestries, is also reminiscent of dom Robert, but a dom Robert on amphetamines, where Nature is abundant, exotic and exuberant (cf. ‘Safari’, ‘l'oiseau de Paradis’). On a smaller, more polished scale, our cartoon bears witness to the colourful vitality of Duhême's inspiration. Bibliography : Cat. Expo. Jacqueline Duhême l’imagière, bibliothèque Forney, 2019 -
Le conscrit des 100 villages (the conscript of the 100 villages)
Aubusson tapestry woven in the Tabard workshop. 1947. -
Aube quarte (fourth dawn)
Marc Petit met Jean Lurçat in 1954, went to Aubusson in 1955, exhibited his work for the first time at La Demeure in 1956, became a member of the A.P.C.T. (Association des Peintres-Cartonniers de Tapisserie) in 1958. After this lightning start to his career, he produced hundreds of cartoons, in a style all his own, where long-legged waders and acrobats wend in and out of dreamscapes. Again, economy of means, with broad flat tints and a narrow chromatic range, for a singular dawn. a theme that the artist is fond of (cf. ‘le pas de l'aube’, but also “Aurore”, ‘la nuit s'éteint’ ....). As for the flock of passing birds, this is another leitmotif, seen in ‘aube courte’ for example.Aubusson tapestry woven in the Picaud workshop. With signed label, n°2/4. Circa 1970. -
Laissez les vivre (let them live)
Aubusson tapestry woven in the Tabard workshop. With signed label, n°6/8. Circa 1970.Henri Ilhe, who came to the design of tapestry cartoons late on in his career, still managed to produce from 1964 onwards a considerable number (more than 120, all woven by the Tabard workshop) in an urbane style, incorporating birds and butterflies sporting in and around the gnarled branches of trees and bushes. “Laissez les livre” is thus, characteristic of Ilhe’s bucolic inspiration. -
Le coquillage étoilé (the starry seashell)
Aubusson tapestry woven by the Berthaut workshop. With label signed by the artist. 1959. Jean Picart le Doux is one of the foremost figures in the renaissance of the art of tapestry. His earliest contributions to the field date back to 1943 when he designed cartoons for the passenger ship “la Marseillaise”. A close associate of Lurçat, whose theories he would adopt (limited palette, numbered cartoons…), he was a founding member of the A.P.C.T. (Association des Peintres-cartonniers de Tapisserie), and soon after, a teacher at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs. The state gave him several commissions most of them at the Aubusson workshop, and some at the Gobelins : the most spectacular of these being for the University of Caen, the Theatre in Le Mans, the passenger ship France or the Prefecture of the Creuse département … In as much as Picart le Doux’s aesthetic is close to that of Lurçat, so also is his inspiration and his subject matter, although in a register which is more decorative than symbolic, where he brings together heavenly bodies (the sun, the moon, the stars…), the elements, nature (wheat, vines, fish, birds…), man, literary quotation … Our tapestry reproduces the left-hand side of a cartoon of the same title dating from 1959. Although Picart le Doux's early tapestries feature marine motifs, he soon moved towards less allegorical, more realistic representations. Bibliography : Marthe Belle-Joufray, Jean Picart le Doux, Publications filmées d’art et d’histoire, 1966 Maurice Bruzeau, Jean Picart le Doux, Murs de soleil, Editions Cercle d’art, 1972, n°91 Exhibition Catalogue, Jean Picart le Doux, tapisseries, Musée de Saint-Denis, 1976 Exhibition Catalogue Jean Picart le Doux, Boulogne sur Mer, Bibliothèque municipale, 1978, n°17 Exhibition Catalogue Jean Picart le Doux, Paris,Musée de la Poste, 1980 Exhibition Catalogue Jean Picart le Doux, Abbaye Saint Jean d’Orbestier, 1992, ill.
