Sarabande
Aubusson tapestry woven in the Pinton workshop.
With label.
1954.
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After the traditional completion of some mural paintings in the 1930’s, he then arrived in Aubusson in 1936, became closely associated with Picart le Doux in 1947 and then joined the A.P.C.T. (Association des Peintres-Cartonniers de Tapisserie). From then on he devoted himself to tapestry with zeal and designed 167 cartoons, at first figurative following on from Picart le Doux and Saint-Saëns, then, influenced by the scientific themes that he dealt with, tending more towards abstraction. In 1981, two years before his death, he donated his studio to the Musée départemental de la tapisserie in Aubusson. Already, before « Passacaille » which would be produced in 1955, Jullien here reveals his interest in dance and music, recurrent themes although rarely illustrated in such an explicit way, with the guitar and oboe playing as if by magic. Might it be that the notes of the sheet-music are suggested by the bird outlines pictured along the parchment-phylactery ? Bibliography : Exhibition catalogue Hommage à Louis-Marie Jullien, Aubusson, Musée départemental de la Tapisserie, 1983
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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. -
Chimie (chemistry)
Aubusson tapestry woven in the Pinton workshop for the Verrière gallery. With signed label, n°1/6. Circa 1970. With a taste for the large-scale, influenced by Untersteller at the Ecole des Beaux Arts, Hilaire undertook numerous mural paintings. In the same vein, beginning in 1949, along with a number of other artists stimulated by Lurçat, (he would join the latter at the A.P.C.T. Association des Peintres-Cartonniers de Tapisserie) he designed a number of cartoons some of which were woven at Beauvais or at Les Gobelins. Hilaire's style occasionally comes close to abstraction, no doubt particularly when he has been asked to evoke a science. In 1974 he imagined another, notably different, tapestry on the same subject for the University of Toulouse (https://www.univ-tlse3.fr/upsart/oeuvre6_565774.html). Bibliography : Exhibition catalogue Hilaire, œuvre tissé, galerie Verrière, 1970 Exhibition catalogue, du trait à la lumière, Musée Départemental Georges de la Tour at Vic-sur-Seille, 2010. -
Paris moderne (modern Paris)
Little is known about the artist, but she created a number of cartoons, which would be woven by Antoine Behna’s ART workshop. The panoramic topographical view was one of the specialities of the workshop, “Paris moderne” being a sort of riposte to Bobot's “Vieux Paris 1650”. An example of each of these tapestries was offered as a gift to President Truman. Bibliography : G. Janneau, A. Behna, Tapisseries de notre temps, 1950, ill. n°3 Millon-Robert sale catalogue 3.10.1990 n°1, 31Tapestry woven by the Colombes workshop for ART (Atelier de Rénovation de la Tapisserie). 1945. -
La nuit (the night)
In 1964 Claire Rado designed and wove in her workshop in Suresnes, her very first tapestry which she then exhibited at the Galerie La Demeure. She weaves her own cartoons, but, rather like Daquin or Coffinet for example, also produces the work of others (Soulages notably as far as Rado is concerned). Her first abstract works were followed by monumental woven figures around which she left the warp bare. A tapestry dating from the artist’s early work, where the subject is chosen and dealt with to contribute to her technical skills.Tapestry woven by Claire Rado's workshop. With signed label. Circa 1965. -
Féérie automnale (automn wonder)
A student of Léon Detroy, Gaston Thiéry is one of the last representatives of the Crozant school of painting. Estalished in the Creuse region of France, he started working on tapestries in 1965 with the Andraud workshop for whom he designed cartoons inspired by the local flora, in a decorative style which can be situated somewhere between that of Dom Robert and Maingonnat, a world away from his landscape paintings which were strongly influenced by the impressionists.Aubusson tapestry woven in the Andraud workshop. With label, n°EA2. 1977. -
L'oiseau d'argent ( the silver bird)
Jane Perathon was chief weaver in her Aubusson workshop (amongst others she wove designs for Lurçat) ; she also (as did other weavers, Hecquet for example) designed several cartoons of her own.Aubusson tapestry woven by Jane Perathon's workshop. With signed label, n°6 Circa 1970. -
Composition
A former student at the ENAD in Aubusson, Lartigaud created his first tapestry cartoon in 1968. He went on to design hundreds more, most of them woven by the Four Workshop, in an abstract style occasionally studded with celestial bodies.Aubusson tapestry woven in the Jean Laurent workshop. N°2/6. Circa 1980. -
Reflets d'argent (silver reflections)
Aubusson tapestry woven by the Pinton workshop. With signed label. Circa 1960.Fumeron designed his first cartoons (he would ultimately make over 500) in the 1940’s, in collaboration with the Pinton workshop, he was then commissioned on numerous occasions by the state before participating in the decoration of the ocean liner “France”. His work was figurative to begin with and influenced by Lurçat, then turned towards abstraction, before coming back to a style characterised by colourful figurative and realistic depictions from the 1980’s onwards. The vertical fronds, through which fish weave in and out, partially hide a flaming red sun : in this piece we recognise all the elements of Fumeron’s characteristically fantastical vision. -
Marchande d'illusions (the dream vendor)
Elie Grekoff, whose aesthetic is similar to that of Lurçat, designed over 300 cartons “The dream vendor” is typical of a vein characteristic of Grekoff where melancholic children consider each other, as in a scene on a stage, redolent of an illustration for a folk tale.Aubusson tapestry woven by the Pinton workshop. With label. Circa 1955.
