New York
Aubusson tapestry woven in the Goubely workshop.
With signed label.
1960.
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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 Gobelins, 2016technical 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. The theme, modernist urbanism, is a rare one for the artist (the tapestry is sometimes also entitled Chicago), and does not appear until quite late. We should not forget, however, the figure of his brother André, an architect, and the omnipresent theme of compartmentalisation: the skyscraper becomes an avatar of the wardrobe or the chequerboard. Bibliography : Tapisseries de Jean Lurçat 1939-1957, Pierre Vorms Editeur, 1957 Exhibition Catalogue Jean Lurçat, Nice, Musée des Ponchettes, 1968 Exhibition Catalogue Lurçat, 10 ans après, Musée d’Art moderne de la ville de Paris, 1976, ill. 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 Gérard Denizeau, Jean Lurçat, Liénart, 2013 Exhibition Catalogue Jean Lurçat, Meister der französischen Moderne, Halle, Kunsthalle Exhibition Catalogue Jean Lurçat au seul bruit du soleil, Paris, galerie des Gobelins, 2016 Exhibition Catalogue Jean Lurçat, la terre, le feu, l’eau, l’air, Perpignan, Musée d’art Hyacinthe Rigaud, 2024
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Idylle pastorale (pastoral idyll)
Georges Rougier, who taught drawing at school in Aubusson, produced numerous cartoons for the Aubusson workshops and the Mobilier National, and worked alongside Marius Martin when he was head of ENAD. Along with Maingonnat and Faureau, Martin made him one of the main protagonists of a pictorial aesthetic resolutely turned towards tapestry, which was expressed in particular at the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs in Paris in 1925 (Rougier also had his own stand there!). Bibliography : Exhibition Catalogue « Tapisseries 1925. Aubusson, Beauvais, les Gobelins à l’Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs de Paris », Aubusson, Cité de la Tapisserie, 2012Aubusson tapestry. Circa 1930. -
Composition
Although he was one of the first Lebanese abstract artists, Assem Stétié (the brother of the better-known poet and critic Saleh Stétié, who was himself close to many artists) is unfortunately a somewhat forgotten painter today. His personal work is both lyrical and masterful, made up of signs in pure colours, a form of personal calligraphy, particularly in the 1970s, from which we can date our tapestry.Aubusson tapestry woven by the Caron workshop. Circa 1970. -
Le clown (the clown)
Aubusson tapestry woven by the Hecquet workshop. With signed label, n°1/1. 1974.Best known for his compositions inspired by the theme of the Circus (his favourite theme, across all techniques: a sculpted acrobat figure adorns the public space in Aubusson), Cinquin, who moved to Aubusson and taught at the Ecole Nationale d’Art Décoratif there until it closed, was (he died in 2019) one of the last artists to have known personally the protagonists of the movement for the renaissance of modern tapestry. -
Mexicaine aux arums (mexican with arum lilies)
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.Aubusson tapestry woven by the Four workshop. With label, n°1/6. Circa 1990. -
Composition
Aubusson tapestry woven in the Henry workshop. With signed label, n°1/1. 1984.Like other sculptors (Gilioli, Adam, Ubac...), Hairabédian turned to tapestry (his studio was located in Creuse from 1975 to 1985). In the absence of volume, his spectacular composition plays on the size of weaving stitches, the hollowing out of space with the blank warp... processes typical of the ‘New Tapestry’. -
Soleil d'août (august sun)
Aubusson tapestry woven by the Braquenié workshop. With signed label. 1958. 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 theme of the harvest first appeared in 1944 (“Harvest”, a copy of which is kept at the Cité de la Tapisserie in Aubusson), along with allegories of the seasons. The figure with the scythe is taken from ‘Winter’ in 1950, one of his most famous tapestries. Here, the composition has become monumental. 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°85 Exhibition Catalogue, Jean Picart le Doux, tapisseries, Musée de Saint-Denis, 1976 Exhibition Catalogue Jean Picart le Doux, Musée de la Poste, 1980 -
Lente approche (slow approach)
Aubusson tapestry woven in the Braquenié workshop. With label. Circa 1960.From his long artistic career, which began in the 1950s (and which later focused mainly on sculpture), Julien produced around twenty tapestries from 1959 onwards, mainly woven by the Braquenié factory, including ‘Le commerce extérieur’ (Foreign Trade), a spectacular 12 m² public commission. His style often features female figures drawn in black, with sober colours and patterns, of which our cartoon is a prime example. Bibliography : Léon-Louis Sosset, Tapisserie contemporaine en Belgique, Perron, 1989 -
Les épées d'or (the golden swords)
Aubusson tapestry woven in the Braquenié workshop. With label. 1955.Jacques Brachet was an important protagonist of the « New Tapestry » movement ; woven by Pierre Daquin, exhibited by the « La Demeure » gallery in the 1970’s, his innovative and experimental approach to the medium, from the 1950’s onwards, was recognised by the Centre International d’études pédagogiques in Sèvres, by the scenography of “La Tapisserie en France, 1945 – 1985, la tradition vivante” at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, and by his inclusion in various promotional events right up to the present day. Before his explorations of the 70s, Brachet produced 6 cartoons in the 50s, which met with modest success (they are all unique pieces). While the martial theme, linked to the practice of fencing, is unprecedented, the aesthetic is close to that of other peintres-cartonniers of the period, such as Jullien. Bibliography : Exhibition catalogue Jacques Brachet, mémoires océanes, Angers, Musée Jean Lurçat et de la tapisserie contemporaine, 1996 -
Le soleil d'Apremont (the sun of Apremont)
Aubusson tapestry woven in the Picaud workshop. With signed label, n°1/4. Circa 1965.Maurice André settled in Aubusson for the duration of the second world war. A founding member of the group “Tapisserie de France” and a member of the A.P.C.T. (Association des Peintres-Cartonniers de Tapisserie), he developed a personal style, different from that of Lurçat, characterised by rigorous, cubist-influenced flat areas of colour, often using a limited palette ; he received large-scale public commissions for the Council of Europe in Strasbourg (“L’Europe unie dans le Travail et la Paix”) or for the French pavilion at the Brussels Exhibition in 1958 (“La Technique moderne au service de l’Homme”). Gradually (as with Wogensky and Prassinos,...) his style evolved towards more abstraction, firstly lyrical and then more and more geometric, in a way very similar to Matégot. In the mid 1960’s André’s style becomes comparable to that of Matégot, made of lyrical ensembles of triangular shapes, in a homogenous colour scheme and sprinkled with stripes, stains, marks... often black, where different techniques specific to the weaver’s art are used to accentuate the impression of volume and depth.
