Procyon
Aubusson tapestry woven by the Legoueix workshop.
With its signed ribbon, no. 3/4.
1968.
A member of the A.P.C.T. (Association des Peintres-Cartonniers de Tapisserie), Wogensky was one of many artists who devoted themselves to tapestry in the immediate post-war period, following in the footsteps of Lurçat. Initially influenced by Lurçat, Wogensky's work (159 cartoons according to the 1989 exhibition catalog) then evolved in the 1960s towards a lyrical abstraction that was not always fully embraced, from cosmic-astronomical themes to decomposed and moving bird forms, towards more refined and less dense cartoons. Although he always proclaimed himself a painter, the artist's reflection on tapestry is very accomplished: "Creating a wall cartoon... means thinking in terms of a space that no longer belongs to us, in terms of its dimensions and scale; it also requires a broad gesture that transforms and accentuates our presence."
"Procyon" belongs to Wogensky's "cosmic" vein (as its title suggests), which ran throughout the 1960s and culminated in "Cosmos" (1968, University of Strasbourg) and "Galaxie" (1970, Senate, Palais du Luxembourg). Chinés (omnipresent) and flat colors coexist in nuanced color combinations, in a curious, unknown world, as close to very small cells seen under a microscope as to the infinitely large.
An identical tapestry is kept at the Jean Lurçat and Contemporary Tapestry Museum in Angers.
Bibliography:
Exhibition catalog: Robert Wogensky, l'oeuvre tissé, Aubusson, Musée départemental de la tapisserie, 1989
Exhibition catalog: Robert Wogensky, Angers, Musée Jean Lurçat et de la Tapisserie Contemporaine, 1989
Exhibition catalog: Workshop Weavings, Artist Weavings, 10 Years of Enriching the Collections, Angers, Jean Lurçat Museum of Contemporary Tapestry, 2004, reproduced on p. 101
Exhibition catalog. Collections! Collections!, Angers, Jean Lurçat Museum of Contemporary Tapestry, 2019-2020, reproduced on p. 11








