Les 2 écureuils
Tapisserie tissée par l'atelier de Wit.
Avec son bolduc signé.
Circa 1960.
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Edmond Dubrunfaut can be considered the great innovator of Belgian tapestry in the 20th century. He founded a weaving workshop in Tournai in 1942, then created the Tournai Tapestry Restoration Center He supplied various Belgian workshops (Chaudoir, de Wit, etc.) with numerous cartoons intended in particular to decorate Belgian embassies around the world. In addition, from 1947 to 1978, Dubrunfaut taught monumental art at theMons Academy of Fine Arts, then, in 1979, participated in the creation of the Foundation for Tapestry, Textile Arts, and Wall Arts in Tournai, véritable conservatoire de la tapisserie en Wallonie. Son style, figuratif, usant de forts contrastes de couleurs souvent, est très inspiré par les animaux et la nature (comme Perrot par exemple, l'artiste a un fort tropisme pour l'ornithologie). L’écureuil fait partie des thèmes récurrents chez l’artiste (cf. « Feux du soir », « Ecureuils et volatiles »…) : il fait ici des queues un motif décoratif en soi.
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Overview
In 1953, Jean Picart le Doux offered Chaye the opportunity to become his assistant and encouraged him to create tapestry cartoons. Chaye went on to produce numerous bucolic cartoons, as well as scenes from Normandy (Mont Saint Michel, Honfleur, regattas, etc.), where he was born. These "bird's-eye view" compositions are characteristic of the artist. Bibliography: Simon Chaye tapisseries contemporaines, Editions Librairie des musées, 2014, ill. p.83Aubusson tapestry woven by the Legoueix workshop. With its signed ribbon, no. 5/6. Circa 1980. -
Moon and Water
Tapestry woven by Münchener Gobelin Manufaktur. Circa 1970.Holger studied at the National School of Decorative Arts in Aubusson and worked with Lurçat before the latter's death in 1966. He produced numerous dreamlike cartoons woven in Aubusson. Now based in the United States, he remains a tireless advocate and witness of modern tapestry, organizing exhibitions and conferences on the subject. Some of his cartoons have been woven in the two active factories in Germany, in Nuremberg and Munich, using the Aubusson technique. -
Feuer und Wasser (Feu et eau)
Tapisserie tissée par la Münchener Gobelin Manufaktur. Avec son bolduc signé de l'artiste. Circa 1970. Holger a été élève à l'Ecole Nationale d'Art Décoratif d'Aubusson, et a travaillé avec Lurçat avant la mort de celui-ci, en 1966. Il a réalisé de nombreux cartons oniriques tissés à Aubusson. Etabli aux Etats-Unis, il reste un infatigable défenseur, et témoin, de la tapisserie moderne, en organisant expositions et conférences sur le sujet. Certains de ses cartons ont été tissés dans les 2 manufactures en activité en Allemagne, à Nuremberg et Münich, au point d’Aubusson. -
Great blue flight
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." The theme of birds appeared in Wogensky's work in the late 1960s. In truth, the representations often remain highly allusive, closer to chronophotographed trajectories than to ornithological treatises: it is movement in space that matters, hence the titles "flight..." At that time, Wogensky pursued the material effects obtained by weavers through the use of different stitch sizes; "grand vol bleu" (great blue flight), the culmination of this theme and formal orientation, is presented majestically in the catalog of the 1973 exhibition at the La Demeure gallery. Bibliography: Exhibition catalog. Robert Wogensky, 20 tapisseries récentes, La Demeure gallery, 1973, ill. no. 1 (and detail on the cover and back) Exhibition catalog. Robert Wogensky, l'oeuvre tissé, Aubusson, Musée départemental de la tapisserie, 1989, ill. on the cover Exhibition catalog. Robert Wogensky, Angers, Musée Jean Lurçat et de la Tapisserie Contemporaine, 1989, ill. p.1. Gérard Denizeau, Denise Majorel, une vie pour la tapisserie, Aubusson, Musée départemental de la tapisserie, 1989, ill. p.70.Aubusson tapestry woven by the Legoueix workshop. No. EA1. 1973. -
Opaline
Primarily an engraver, Davo reproduces his research on the medium in tapestry, based on oxidation linked to metals deposited on copper plates, hence his iridescent and solarization effects.Aubusson tapestry woven by the Pinton workshop. With its ribbon, no. 1/6. Circa 1980. -
The Spring Violin
Aubusson tapestry woven by the Pinton workshop. With its signed ribbon, no. 2/6. 1956.Painter and engraver Lucien Coutaud also worked for the theater with Dullin and Barrault, creating numerous sets and costumes. But it was his meeting with Marie Cuttoli in 1933 that led him to tapestry: she commissioned him mainly to design seat patterns. Most of his subsequent tapestries were woven at Pinton for the Compagnie des Arts Français, which aimed to integrate tapestry into interior design. The artist's last three tapestries in 1960 are a testament to his renown, as "Jardins exotiques" adorned the first-class lounge of the "France." Coutaud's qualities as a scenographer influenced by surrealism are reflected in his woven work: his universe is figurative but stylized (the shapes are sharp and jagged), resolutely dreamlike, and very often features unusual borders. There is a close link between music and dreamlike imagery in Coutaud's world: he designs musical still lifes in which instruments come to life (see "harpe marine"), highlighted by borders brimming with eccentricity. Bibliography: Cat. Exp. Lucien Coutaud, œuvre tissé, Aubusson, Musée Départemental de la Tapisserie, 1988-1989, illustrated on p. 50. -
The 2 companions
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 the technical issues with François Tabard, then, when he moved to Aubusson during the war, he defined his own system: large stitches, counted 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 whose culmination was to be the "Chant du Monde" (Jean Lurçat Museum, former Saint-Jean Hospital, Angers), which was unfinished at the time of his death. Our cardboard model is an inverted version of "L'Homme" (a copy of which is kept at the Musée d'Art Moderne in Paris), with a few modifications. The message is the same: integrated with Nature, in the foliage, surrounded by animals (an owl nestled against his breast, his blue dog companion...), Man is the pivot around which all Creation revolves. Bibliography: Tapisseries de Jean Lurçat 1939-1957, Pierre Vorms Editeur, 1957 Exhibition catalog: Lurçat, 10 ans après, Musée d'Art moderne de la ville de Paris, 1976 Exhibition catalog: Les domaines de Jean Lurçat, Angers, Jean Lurçat Museum and Contemporary Tapestry, 1986 Colloquium Jean Lurçat and the Renaissance of Tapestry in Aubusson, Aubusson, Departmental Tapestry Museum, 1992 Exhibition catalog Dialogues avec Lurçat, Museums of Lower Normandy, 1992 Exhibition catalog Jean Lurçat, Simone Lurçat Donation, Academy of Fine Arts, 2004 Gérard Denizeau, Jean Lurçat, Liénart, 2013 Exhibition catalog Jean Lurçat au seul bruit du soleil (Jean Lurçat to the Sound of the Sun Alone), Paris, Galerie des Gobelins, 2016Aubusson tapestry woven by the Tabard workshop. With its ribbon. Circa 1945. -
Matégot, initially a decorator, then a designer of objects and furniture (an activity he gave up in 1959), met François Tabard in 1945 and gave him his first cartoons, initially figurative, then soon abstract, from the 1950s onwards. He became a member of the A.P.C.T. (Association des Peintres-Cartonniers de Tapisserie) in 1949, participated in numerous international exhibitions (Matégot, like Lurçat before him, was a tireless advocate of tapestry), and fulfilled many public commissions, some of them monumental ("Rouen," 85 m² for the Seine-Maritime prefecture, but also tapestries for Orly, the Maison de la Radio, the IMF, etc.) and produced no fewer than 629 cartoons until the 1970s. In 1990, the Matégot Foundation for Contemporary Tapestry was inaugurated in Bethesda, USA. Matégot, along with other artists such as Wogensky, Tourlière, and Prassinos, was one of those who resolutely steered wool toward abstraction, initially lyrical, then geometric in the 1970s, exploiting different technical aspects of the craft: gradients, beating, pricking, stippling, etc. Our cartoon is part of a large body of tapestries with exotic overtones: "Acapulco," "Mindanao," "Santa Cruz," etc., but treated in an abstract manner. At that time, his tapestries were resolutely compartmentalized (but not geometric), before the more lyrical phase of the 1960s. Bibliography: J. Cassou, M. Damain, R. Moutard-Uldry, La tapisserie française et les peintres cartonniers, Tel, 1957, ill. p.141 Waldemar Georges, Mathieu Matégot, special issue of Prisme des Arts, 1957, reproduced Cat. Exp. Matégot, Angers, Musée Jean Lurçat et de la Tapisserie Contemporaine, 1990-1991, reproduced p.33 Patrick Favardin, Mathieu Matégot, Editions Norma, 2014, reproduced p.96 at the Salon des Artistes Décorateurs in 1954
Linarès
Aubusson tapestry woven by the Tabard workshop. With its ribbon. 1954.
