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Aubusson tapestry woven in the Goubely workshop. With label, signed with stamp, and by the artit's son, n°6/6. 1941.Gromaire’s woven pieces are few in number : 11 cartoons, designed between 1938 and 1944, most of them in Aubusson. “His rigorous construction, his use of simplification, his penchant for grand composition and grand fundamental ideas, his knowledgeable use of colour and in sum his supreme quality as a master-craftsman, all of those things were to make of him one of the most expert tapestry artists of his time”, so wrote Jean Cassou (Exhibition catalogue, Marcel Gromaire, Paris, Musée Nationale d’art moderne, 1963). It was Guillaume Janneau, then in the chair of the Mobilier National, who contacted him in 1938, convinced that his style (simplification of shape, geometrical designs framed in black, influenced by cubism, limited colour schemes…) would have something to contribute to the resolution of the new aesthetic problems that the art of tapestry would have to confront in order to bring about its renewal (simplified palette, synthetic cartoon design...) firstly with a commission for a work on the theme of the four elements, then with a second (“les saisons”, the seasons) which would be produced at Aubusson. In 1940 Gromaire joined Lurçat and Dubreuil there. Working alone, with great meticulosity (numerous drawings anticipate the cartoon which is painted rather than numbered as with Lurçat), in close collaboration with Suzanne Goubely, who would weave all his cartoons, he spent 4 years in Aubusson, during which time he devoted all his creative energy to tapestry. At the end of the war, he left the Creuse and produced no more cartoons, leaving to Lurçat the position of grand initiator of the tapestry renewal movement. « Oiseaux de proie » is one of the 5 tapestry cartoons designed by Gromaire for the Goubely workshop during the war and it is emblematic of his style : inspired by local landscapes, the absence of perspective, the strictly organised yet rich and highly abundant style, a limited palette (it is interesting to note the use at this period when France was occupied, the dominant colours of red, white and blue)... The atmosphere of this piece is more menacing than that of other pre-existing works.Bibliography : Tapisseries contemporaines Lurçat Gromaire, éditions Braun et cie, 1943, ill. Le Point, Aubusson et la renaissance de la Tapisserie, mars 1946, ill. p.35 Jean Lurçat, Tapisserie française, Bordas, 1947, plate 25 J. Cassou, M. Damain, R. Moutard-Uldry, la tapisserie française et les peintres cartonniers, Tel, 1957 Exhibition catalogue, Gromaire, œuvre tissée, Aubusson, Musée de la tapisserie, 1995, reproduced on p. 49 Symposium Jean Lurçat et la renaissance de la tapisserie in Aubusson, Aubusson, Musée départemental de la tapisserie 1992, ill. n°14 (detail) Exhibition catalogue La manufacture des Gobelins dans la première moitié du XXe siècle, Beauvais, Galerie nationale de la tapisserie, 1999.
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Tapis de sol (Floor carpet)
Manessier was trained in the Bissière studio where he became familiar with decorative art (the sets for the 1937 Exhibition), and with applied arts particularly in the context of religious art (cartoons for stained glass, the design of liturgical ornamentation,...), and designed his first tapestry cartoon in 1947. Somewhat disappointed with the results, too well-defined and arid for his taste, he turned in the 1950’s to the Plasse le Caisne workshop. Exploiting a different technique which allowed for the contrast of stitches, materials, the use of relief, ... and a greater freedom for the weaver who thus engaged in a close collaboration with the cartoon designer, Plasse le Caisne went on to weave most of Manessier’s tapestries, some of them particularly large-scale (“Chant Grégorien” for the Maison de la Radio,...), some of them forming a cycle (the 12 “Cantiques sprituels de Saint Jean de la Croix),... Very much a one-off in Manessier’s work : a rug, but woven using the Aubusson weaving technique in the Goubely workshop (the only time they worked for the artist) ; it was a commission from Myriam Prévot, co-director of the Galerie de France, which was very active in the promotion of most of the non-figurative and lyrical abstract painters (organising 7 separate exhibitions devoted to Manessier), for her flat on the quai d’Anjou : underlying the close relationship between the artist and the gallery owner who represented him. Bibliography : Exhibition Catalogue Manessier, oeuvre tissé, Eglise du château de Felletin, 1993 (ill. p.39)Aubusson carpet/tapestry woven by the Goubely workshop. 1959. -
Banlieue (Suburbs)
Aubusson tapestry woven in the Goubely workshop. With signed label. 1945.An enthusiastic mural artist as early as 1937 (he participated in the Exposition Internationale), Lagrange designed his first cartoons in 1945, and became one of the founding members of the A.P.C.T. His early cartoons were expressionist (like Matégot and Tourlière), then his work evolved towards a stylisation (dating from his collaboration with Pierre Baudouin) which would bring him in the 1970’s to a highly refined style using very pure colours. As well as his important rôle in the tapestry renaissance movement of the period (and the state commissions that went with it), Lagrange would become a teacher at the Ecole Nationale des Beaux-Arts, a regular collaborator with Jacques Tati, a designer of monumental elements incorporated in various architectural projects and a recognised painter close to Estève and Lapicque. « Banlieue » the first of my tapestries woven in Aubusson, pictures the work of travelling mattress carders using a curious contraption to comb wool which flies around the streets” explained the artist. In his early works Lagrange in a realistic, almost expressionist, vein deals in themes of life in the suburbs, the people who plied their trades (here in an amusing mise en abyme about working with wool) in daily life (cf also Guignebert “le marché aux puces” “flea market” which is contemporary) in a completely different style from Lurçat’s cosmology. The tapestry was featured in the 1946 exhibition and two other copies are conserved at the Musée de la Chaux-de-Fonds and the Museum du Pays d’Ussel. Bibliography : Multi-authored, Muraille et laine, Editions Pierre Tisné, 1946, ill. n°58 Madeleine Jarry, La tapisserie, art du XXe siècle, Office du livre, 1974, ill. n°69 Exhibition Catalogue Lagrange, Angers, Musée Jean Lurçat et de la tapisserie contemporaine, 1987, ill.p.16-17 Exhibition catalogue, Jean Lurçat, compagnons de route et passants considérables, Felletin, Eglise du château, 1992, ill. p.29 Robert Guinot, Jacques Lagrange, les couleurs de la vie, Lucien Souny editeur, 2005, n°28, illustrated Gérard Denizeau, Denise Majorel, une vie pour la tapisserie, Aubusson, Musée départemental de la tapisserie, ill. p.73 J.J. et B. Wattel, Jacques Lagrange ets es toiles : peintures, tapisseries, cinéma, Editions Louvre Victoire, 2020, ill. p.33, 70-71 -
Chèvrefeuilles (Honeysuckle/Goats and leaves)
Aubusson tapestry woven in the Goubely workshop. With signed label, n°1. 1973. A Benedictine monk and an illuminator, Dom Robert met Jean Lurçat in 1941 at the Abbey of En Calcat : while he never abandoned drawing (his watercolours, painted to life, would serve him as a reservoir of ideas for his tapestries), his work as a cartoonist (he was a member of the A.P.C.T. from its inception) would take on a considerable importance (at least a hundred cartoons, all numbered) and would be highly thought of. His immediately recognisable style, absence of perspective¸motifs inspired from the natural world (in a Paradisiac style) where stylised flora and fauna combine in a festive and extrovert exuberance, where the influence of mediaeval tapestry can be clearly felt ; poetic and colourful, Dom Robert’s cartoons are the incarnation of their author’s spiritual asceticism. Inaugurated in the Spring of 2015, the musée Dom Robert opened its doors in in the monastery-school in Sorèze in the department of the Tarn. Goats and foliage in all their variety, rather than « Honeysuckle » (Chèvre means goat and feuille means leaf in French n.tr.), Dom Robert was never one to turn his back on the possibility of a pun (as in “Plein champ” meaning Open field but to the ear it can be confused with Plainchant tr.n.). It is interesting that a goat appears also in that tapestry design from 1970. Here, on a uniquely large scale for this subject, the goats are displayed against an autumnal background, a reference to “l’Automne” (Autumn) which was the last of the series The Seasons completed in 1943. A similar design is on display at the Cité Internationale de la Tapisserie in Aubusson. Bibliography : Exhibition Catalogue Dom Robert, tapisseries récentes, galerie la Demeure, 1974, ill. p.15, cartoon p.23 Multi-authored, Dom Robert, Tapisseries, Editions Julliard, 1980, ill p.70-71, detail on front cover, cartoon p.85 Multi-authored, Dom Robert, Tapisseries, Editions Siloë-Sodec, 1990, ill. P.62-67 Exhibition Catalogue, Dom Robert, œuvre tissé, Angers, Musée Jean Lurçat et de la tapisserie contemporaine, 1990 Exhibition Catalogue, Hommage à Dom Robert, Musée départemental de la tapisserie, Aubusson, 1998 Multi-authored, la clef des champs, Dom Robert, Editions Privat, 2003, ill. p.124 Multi-authored, les saisons de Dom Robert, Tapisseries, Editions Hazan, 2014, ill p.164-167 B. Ythier, Guide du visiteur, Cité Internationale de la tapisserie d’Aubusson, ill. p.65 R. Guinot, hors-série la Montagne, une Cité pour la tapisserie d’Aubusson, 2018, ill. p.82 Multi-authored, la tapisserie française, Editions du Patrimoine, 2017, ill. 312-313 -
Composition
A friend of both Bertholle and Le Normand, with whom he produced several frescoes in the 1940’s, Idoux produced his first tapestry cartoon in 1946 and joined the A.P.C.T. in 1951. His tapestries, where geometrical and optical effects resonate in a grand harmony (and this is only the beginning of the 1950’s!) hark back to his work in stained glass (the church of Notre Dame in Royan for example). As a confirmation of his meteoric rise in the world of tapestry (producing around twenty cartoons in ten years), official recognition came with a commission for two tapestries “Jardin Magique” and “Fée Mirabelle” which were created for the 1st class saloon of the Atlantic ocean liner “France” (“Jardin Magique” is now kept at the eco-museum in St Nazaire).Aubusson tapestry woven in the Rivière des Borderies workshop. Circa 1950. -
Treilles (trellis)
Aubusson tapestry woven in the Pinton workshop for Leleu. With label. 1964.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. This tapestry hung in the dining-room of the villa Médy Roc, at the Cap d’Antibes, for which the Leleu studio designed furnishings and fittings starting in 1957 : their philosophy, inspired by Jacques Adnet’s theories of the interweaving of architecture, furniture and tapestry design , which should all be unified by a single view, was to lean into the idea of a tradition of good taste “à la française”, as interpreted by the best designers and artists of the period. With this in mind, another work, also by Hilaire, “Jardin à la française” was already in place in the dining-room before this tapestry, where a traditional trellis shelters birds of more exotic plumage, was installed in the same area in 1964. Both works appear in the film “Les seins de glace”, directed by Lautner featuring Delon, Brasseur and Mireille Darc, which was filmed on location in the villa. Provenance : villa Médy Roc, Cap d’Antibes 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. -
Composition
Tapestry, probably Aubusson woven. Circa 1970 If Lanskoy’s work starts to evolve towards the abstract from the beginning of the 1940’s, his first cartoons date from the 1950’s : thus they are all abstract. Originally working with Picaud’s workshop at Aubusson, he would go on to collaborate with Maurice Chassagne (on whose productions there never appears any indication of the workshop nor certificate of authenticity), but his work was also woven by the Manufactures Nationales, and “Consolation” would be hung in the ocean liner “France”, undeniable proof of official recognition for this artist. A major protagonist of lyrical abstraction whose work was championed by the major art galleries of the period (Jeanne Bucher, Louis Carré), Lanskoy whose luxuriant painting style employed a festival of colours (pinks, mauves and oranges are frequent) avoided his characterestic layering of paint when he produced work for weaving. In the same more contained more vein, the forms employed tend to be less exuberant. -
Les Champs-Elysées (the Champs Elysées)
The important and significant place that Maurice Brianchon occupies in the movement to renew the art of tapestry owes a lot to his relationship with Jacques Adnet. A teacher at the Ecole nationale supérieure des Arts décoratifs, Brianchon was known for his murals, also as a set designer for the theatre, and during the war years, as the creator of 6 cartoons for the Compagnie des Arts Français (which with the 2 others he produced for the Manufactures Nationales, will be the only ones he produced). If his style is similar to that of the Nabis (and most notably Vuillard), the themes he uses in his tapestries are more characteristic of the grand French tradition of which, at the time, the Compagnie des Arts, was the champion : fauns, divinities, anachronic juxtapositions... are evoked in a poetic and dream-like atmosphere which is both refined and even precious. ‘Le Ballet’, a carton woven at the Gobelins, is a contemporary work; while the general composition is retained here (actors on “the boards” in costumes similar to those designed by the artist at the time for Marivaux's “Fausses confidences”, side scenery, perspective, etc.), Brianchon opted for monochrome here and, for once, the carton woven in private workshops is larger than that produced at the Manufactures Nationales. Bibliography : J. Cassou, M. Damain, R. Moutard-Uldry, la tapisserie française et les peintres-cartonniers, Editions Tel, 1957 Cat. Expo. Dialogues avec Lurçat, Musées de Basse-Normandie, 1992 Symposium Jean Lurçat et la renaissance de la Tapisserie à Aubusson, Aubusson, Musée départemental de la tapisserie, 1992, ill. n°9 Cat. Expo. Le Mobilier National et les Manufactures Nationales des Gobelins et de Beauvais sous la IVe République, Beauvais, galerie nationale de la tapisserie, 1997Aubusson tapestry woven by the Pinton workshop for the Compagnie des arts Français. 1945. -
Composition au chou (composition with cabbage)
Sam Szafran, best known as the painter (or rather, the water-colour and pastel artist) of philodendrons and staircases, was also, previously, in the early 1960’s, a painter of cabbages ; here is how he explained it : “I remember being taken by my grandfather to the synagogue in the rue Pavée. We walked through the Marais district. It was summer. The streets were filled with the abominable smell of cooking cabbage, because it was the cheapest, most wholesome vegetable”. From this period date his beginnings as a pastel artist, and his encounter with Lilette Keller who would become his wife, weaver and assistant to Jean Lurçat. It is thus at the meeting point of these elements and of the person who embodies them, that our tapestry has its origin, one of the very few made by the artist and his wife in an exemplary collaboration (in a similar way to Marthe Hennebert weaving for Lurçat) : a wonderfully realistic cabbage, rendered by very subtle shading, is caught up in a maelstrom of greenery (a thematic tapestry colour if ever there was one), which in some ways announces the opaque and dense philodendron pictures to come. Bibliography : Exhibition Catalogue Sam Szafran, obsessions d'un peintre, Paris, Musée de l'Orangerie, 2022-2023, p.175Tapestry woven By Lilette Keller. Circa 1963.
