All tapestries

Music and seashells

Aubusson tapestry woven by the Tabard workshop. With its ribbon. Circa 1950.

Lurçat's body of work is immense, but it is his role in the revival of the art of tapestry that has ensured his place in history. He began working with canvas in 1917, then collaborated with Marie Cuttoli in the 1920s and 1930s. His first collaboration with Les Gobelins dates back to 1937, when he discovered the Apocalypse tapestry in Angers, which inspired him to devote himself entirely to tapestry. He first tackled technical issues with François Tabard, then, when he moved to Aubusson during the war, he defined his own system: large stitches, measured tones, numbered cartoons. A huge production then began (more than 1,000 cartoons), amplified by his desire to involve his painter friends, the creation of the A.P.C.T. (Association des Peintres-Cartonniers de Tapisserie) and his collaboration with the La Demeure gallery and Denise Majorel, then by his role as a tireless promoter of the medium throughout the world. His woven work bears witness to a specifically decorative art of imagery, in a highly personal, cosmogonic symbolic iconography (sun, planets, zodiac, four elements, etc.), stylized plants, animals (goats, roosters, butterflies, chimeras, etc.), stand out against a background without perspective (deliberately distanced from painting) and, in his most ambitious cartoons, are intended to share a vision that is both poetic (he sometimes embellishes these tapestries with quotations) and philosophical (the major themes were addressed as early as the war: freedom, resistance, fraternity, truth, etc.) and which culminated in the "Chant du Monde" (Jean Lurçat Museum, former Saint-Jean Hospital, Angers), unfinished at the time of his death. This model (a copy of which is kept at the Cité de la Tapisserie in Aubusson) is exemplary of the theme of the laid table, a recurring motif in Lurçat's work. The association between musical instruments and shells also refers to the work of Picart le doux. Bibliography: Tapisseries de Jean Lurçat 1939-1957, Pierre Vorms Editeur, 1957 Cat. Expo. Lurçat, 10 ans après, Musée d'Art moderne de la ville de Paris, 1976Cat. Expo. Les domaines de Jean Lurçat, Angers, Musée Jean Lurçat et de la tapisserie contemporaine, 1986 Colloque Jean Lurçat et la renaissance de la tapisserie à Aubusson, Aubusson, Musée départemental de la Tapisserie, 1992 Exhibition catalog. Dialogues avec Lurçat, Museums of Lower Normandy, 1992. Exhibition catalog. Jean Lurçat, Donation Simone Lurçat, Academy of Fine Arts, 2004. R. Guinot, Tapestry of Aubusson and Felletin, Lucien Souny, 2009, ill. p.96 Gérard Denizeau, Jean Lurçat, Liénart, 2013 Exhibition catalog: Jean Lurçat au seul bruit du soleil (Jean Lurçat to the Sound of the Sun), Paris, Galerie des Gobelins, 2016

Petit bois

Tapisserie d’Aubusson tissée par l’atelier Tabard. Avec son bolduc, signé de l’ artiste. Circa 1970.

Devenu peintre-cartonnier sur le tard, Henri Ilhe a néanmoins conçu, à partir de 1964, un œuvre tissé tout à fait considérable (plus de 120 cartons, tous tissés chez Tabard) au style aimable, fait d’oiseaux ou de papillons s’ébattant dans des arbustes aux branches noueuses. « Petit bois » est, à cet égard, caractéristique de l’inspiration bucolique d’Ilhe.

Poissons et grenouilles

Tapisserie d’Aubusson tissée par l’atelier Picaud. Avec son bolduc signé, n°1/4. Circa 1970.

Elie Grekoff, proche de l’esthétique de Lurçat, réalisera plus de 300 cartons : fond noir, sous-marin, avec poissons et feuillages, se distinguent de Lurçat par la curieuse et amusante présence de grenouilles.