Vera Cruz
Aubusson tapestry woven in the Simone André workshop.
With label signed by the artist.
Circa 1955.
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La femme fleur (flower lady)
At the beginning of the 1980’s , Bezombes returned to tapestry with “Bally” (see Audap-Mirabaud auction 19.11.12, lot n° 8) and this cartoon (see also what is doubtless the original drawing in the Pillon auction 4.12.2005 n° 245), both are particularly dreamlike and strongly influenced by graphic art and illustration techniques. “La femme fleur” (flower lady) is reproduced in the « Tapisserie d’Aubusson” file edited by the Guéret Chamber of Commerce and Industry in the beginning of the 1980’s to illustrate the technical mastery of the weavers of Aubusson.Aubusson tapestry woven in the Four workshop. N°EA/1. Circa 1980.Roger Bezombes was a proponent of monumental art from the beginning. He received numerous commissions for tapestries on behalf of the state which were woven first at the Gobelins and then at Aubusson, particularly with the Hamot workshop whose dyers were able to produce for him wools to match exactly the colours used for his cartons (which he painted himself to scale). In 1952-53, he produced a monumental set (300 m2) for the pavilion of the French colonies at the Cité Universitaire de Paris. He abandoned the weaving technique at the end of the 1950’s in favour of hangings made of assembled fabrics. -
Cap Canaveral (Cape Canaveral)
Aubusson tapestry woven by the Tabard workshop. With signed label, n°2/6. Circa 1970. -
Coq papillon (cock butterfly)
Aubusson tapestry woven in the Picaud workshop. With label signed by the artist's widow. Circa 1960. -
Sérénade à la lune (moon serenade)
Aubusson tapestry woven by the Braquenié workshop. N°IV/VI. 1952. -
New York
Aubusson tapestry woven in the Goubely workshop. With signed label. 1960. -
Mexicaine aux arums (mexican with arum lilies)
Toffoli produced a large number of tapestries in collaboration with the Robert Four workshop from 1976 onwards, designing several hundred cartoons. In them we find post-cubist transparent effects which are characteristic of the artist, as indeed are the subjects treated. Thus Toffoli’s tapestries do not differ from his painting : travelling for inspiration, here he illustrates scenes observed during his travels in South America.Aubusson tapestry woven by the Four workshop. With label, n°1/6. Circa 1990. -
Bouquet d'anniversaire (Birthday bouquet)
Van Vlasselaer (1907-1982) is known for having created numerous monumental wall paintings as well as stain glass windows. From 1950 onwards he created tapestry cartoons inspired by scenes of everyday life, traditional Flemish folklore and natural subjects in keeping with the aesthetic of the group “Forces Murales”. He evolved from the figurative of his early work towards dense designs incorporating sharp-edged foliage laid out against geometrically inspired backgrounds influenced by Cubism. “From 1969 onwards, his style became ever more flamboyant. One of the most remarkable examples is without doubt “Bouquet d’anniversaire”... on a monumental scale... Each detail is strikingly original. The foliage and the blossoms are rendered in such a way to take them beyond their natural condition in a fantastical style that still retains a certain rigour...” (R. Avermaete, van Vlasselaer Tapisseries, p.97) Bibliography : R. Avermaete, van Vlasselaer Tapisseries, Editions Arcade, 1973, ill. p.88Tapestry woven by the Braquenié workshop. 1969. -
Bouquet d'automne (autumn bouquet)
A student at the ENAD, Goffinet was a close collaborator of Dirk Holger whose influence (as also that of Prassinos) is notable in the rare tapestries woven from cartoons of his design. On occasion, as in this case, he wove his designs himself.Aubusson tapestry. N°EA1. Circa 1975. -
Arès et Aphrodite (Ares and Aphrodite)
« It is thus easy to understand that, having based my painting on my love of tapestry, it was relatively easy for me, and particularly tempting, to produce tapestries which were faithful to my painting” writes the artist in the exhibition catalogue for the 1970 show at the Galerie Verrière.It is not until 1961 that he started making designs (over 50) both for woven tapestries (at Aubusson, but also for the Mobilier National with, on occasion, the collaboration of Pierre Baudoin), but also those employing needlepoint. The artist’s very audacious palette is immediately recognisable in these cartons, with their use of primary colours. But if Lapicque’s artistic language is established in the 1950’s, the themes which appear in his work evolve with time : thus mythological subjects (recurrent in the history of tapestry making) appear in his work following a journey to Greece in 1964, and « Diane et Actéon », then « Pélops » were the first of his cartoons to be woven in Aubusson predating “Arès et Aphrodite” whose depiction is faithful to the ancient texts (Homer, Ovid) : Hephaestus throwing his net and the Olympian gods laughing at the scene.... Bibliography : Exhibition catalogue, Expo Lapicque, Lyons, Galerie Verrière 1970Aubusson tapestry woven in the Picaud workshop. With signed label, n°1/4. Circa 1970. -
Au crépuscule (at dusk)
Edmond Dubrunfaut can be considered as the great 20th century renovator of the Belgian tapestry tradition. He founded a weavers’ workshop in Tournai as early as 1942, then, in 1947, created the Centre de Rénovation de la Tapisserie de Tournai. He produced for various Belgian workshops (Chaudoir, de Wit,…) numerous cartoons destined notably to adorn Belgian embassies throughout the world. Moreover, Dubrunfaut was a teacher of monumental art forms at the Academie des Beaux-Arts de Mons from 1947 to 1978 and then, in 1979, contributed to the creation of the Fondation de la tapisserie, des arts du tissu et des arts muraux de Tournai, a veritable heritage centre for the art of the tapestry in Wallonie. His style, characterised by figuration, strong colour contrasts, draws direct inspiration from nature and animal life (as with Perrot, for example, this artist has a net predilection for birdlife). In this respect, this cartoon is characteristic of the aforementioned predilection, but here the realistic representation of the motif is a departure from Perrot’s habitual stylisation. Bibliography : Exhibition catalogue Dubrunfaut et la renaissance de la tapisserie, tableaux, dessins, peintures, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Mons, 1982-1983, n°254.Tapestry woven in the DMW workshop. With signed label. 1974. -
Au coeur de l'ombre (At the heart of darkness)
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. This cartoon (the only one dating from 1971) is a prelude to 1972, the year of the « ombres » “shadows” : every 13th cartoon he designs that year has the word in its title; a possible reference to the contemporaneous design of stained glass windows for the temple (protestant church) in Villefavard. Bibliography : Exhibition catalogue Hommage à Louis-Marie Jullien, Aubusson, Musée départemental de la Tapisserie, 1983, n°148 (the model is illustrated)Aubusson tapestry woven in the Legoueix workshop. With signed label, n°1/3 (and handwritten note "tirage arrêté 1/2" [stopped edition 1/2]). 1971. -
Trois variations sur un thème géométrique simple (three variations on a simple geometric theme)
A multi-talented artist, at one and the same time, painter, writer, critic, theorist and art historian, Seuphor moved among the Parisian avant-garde of the 1920’s : he founded the group ‘Cercle et Carré” which took as its philosophy the principles of the neo-plasticism of Mondrian – with whom he was closely associated – and he was always at the forefront of the movement for abstract geometrical art. In the 1950’s he developed his “dessins à lacunes à traits horizontaux” or “drawings with spaced horizontal lines” for which he is principally known as an artist. It is from these works that his tapestries developed, woven in the Manufactures Nationales at the end of the 1960’s. “Three variations....” can equally be seen in this light where black horizontal lines of varying density contrast with plain areas, creating a tension between filled and empty space, alternating colours which can be said to be the essence of neo-plasticism.Aubusson tapestry woven in the Picaud workshop. With label, n°1/6. Circa 1970. -
Florale n°3 (Floral n°3)
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 Gobelins, 2016technical 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. The framing of motifs is a recurrent trope in Lurçat's production (one only has to think of his “armoires” - cabinets) ; nevertheless, nature, flowers, cannot be contained and tend to spill over, out of the frame. This composition partially revisits (the right-hand side) his work entitled “Nouveau jardin Marcenac”, a cartoon dating from 1955. Bibliography : Tapisseries de Jean Lurçat 1939-1957, Pierre Vorms Editeur, 1957 Exhibition Catalogue Jean Lurçat, Nice, Musée des Ponchettes, 1968 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 Gérard Denizeau, Jean Lurçat, Liénart, 2013 Exhibition Catalogue Jean Lurçat, Meister der französischen Moderne, Halle, Kunsthalle Exhibition Catalogue Jean Lurçat au seul bruit du soleil, Paris, galerie des Gobelins, 2016Aubusson tapestry woven in the Pinton workshop. With label signed by the artist's widow. Circa 1955. -
Coqthon (Cocktuna)
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 Gobelins, 2016technical 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. If there is one motif that is omnipresent in Lurçat’s work over the years it is that of the cockerel, in an infinite variety of interpretations. It can be used in many and various associations, syntheses (cocktuna rather than cock and tuna) bridging different elements, hierarchies, natural worlds. 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 Gérard Denizeau, Jean Lurçat, Liénart, 2013 Exhibition Catalogue Jean Lurçat, Meister der französischen Moderne, Halle, Kunsthalle Exhibition Catalogue Jean Lurçat au seul bruit du soleil, Paris, galerie des Gobelins, 2016Tapestry probably woven in Aubusson, in the Goubely workshop. Circa 1950. -
Le luth et le chandelier (the lute and the candelabra)
Aubusson tapestry woven by the Hamot workshop.
With signed label, n°2/8.
Circa 1955.Jean Picart le Doux is one of the foremost figures in the renaissance of the art of tapestry. His earliest contributions to the field date back to 1943 when he designed cartoons for the passenger ship “la Marseillaise”. A close associate of Lurçat, whose theories he would adopt (limited palette, numbered cartoons...), he was a founding member of the A.P.C.T. (Association des Peintres-cartonniers de Tapisserie), and soon after, a teacher at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs. The state gave him several commissions most of them at the Aubusson workshop, and some at the Gobelins : the most spectacular of these being for the University of Caen, the Theatre in Le Mans, the passenger ship France or the Prefecture of the Creuse département ... In as much as Picart le Doux’s aesthetic is close to that of Lurçat, so also is his inspiration and his subject matter, although in a register which is more decorative than symbolic, where he brings together heavenly bodies (the sun, the moon, the stars...), the elements, nature (wheat, vines, fish, birds...), man, literary quotation ...
In this cartoon (strangely absent from Bruzeau’s book), the accent is squarely placed by the title on the chandelier itself, but there are familiar aspects of the artist’s habitual repertoire, reflecting a past, ideal golden age, with the viola da gamba and the butterflies. The inclusion of these motifs and the red background are both reminiscent of the 1955 tapestry Damier (checkerboard) (Bruzeau n° 68)
Bibliography :
Marthe Belle-Joufray, Jean Picart le Doux, Publications filmées d’art et d’histoire, 1966
Maurice Bruzeau, Jean Picart le Doux, Murs de soleil, Editions Cercle d’art, 1972
Exhibition Catalogue, Jean Picart le Doux, tapisseries, Musée de Saint-Denis, 1976
Exhibition Catalogue Jean Picart le Doux, Musée de la Poste, 1980 -
La grâce (grace)
Kozo Inoué moved to Paris in 1960 and devoted himself mainly to screen printing. His work was woven by the Four workshop from 1984 onwards. In his works, all of which present “grace” unfolding petals, leaves or butterflies, as if suspended, single (or occasionally multiple) motifs against a contrasting, shaded background.Aubusson tapestry woven by the Four workshop. With signed label, n°5/6. Circa 1990. -
Sérénade
Aubusson tapestry woven in the Pinton workshop. Circa 1950. 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 is probably one of Hilaire’s first cartoons for the medium, at a period in his work when the human figure was still omnipresent (before disappearing completely around 1960), and he was being regularly commissioned for works in public spaces : this bucolic « Serenade » can be seen to refer to « Quatuor » a cartoon dating from 1950 and woven by Pinton for the Mobilier National. 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. -
Bouquet d'artifice (Bouquet of "flowerworks")
Aubusson tapestry woven by the Pinton workshop. Avec son bolduc signé de l'artiste. Circa 1960.First a poster artist, then an artist-ethnographer during the war, Perrot began his career as a cartoon designer at its end, making almost 500 cartoons, most of which were woven at Aubusson, including numerous commissions from the state (with 33 cartoons, Perrot is the most prolific tapestry designer in the Mobilier National’s collection!). His style which is particularly rich and decorative is eminently recognisable : he illustrates in flat colours (with neither shading nor picking) an abundance of animals (most often birds), standing out with no perspective, against a background of vegetation, in a style reminiscent of the mediaeval mille-fleurs tapestries. Rather like a floral display of pyrotechnics, « Bouquet d’artifice » (Bouquet of “flowerworks”) presents an abundant spray of numerous varieties, some even slightly stylised, in a riot of colours accentuated by the black background : an ode to Nature. Bibliography : Tapisseries, dessins, peintures, gravures de René Perrot, Dessein et Tolra, 1982 Exhibition catalogue René Perrot, mon pauvre cœur est un hibou, Aubusson, Cité Internationale de la Tapisserie, 2023 -
A chacun son soleil à chacun sa lumière (To each his sun to each his light)
Essentially known to the artistic community for her ink drawings and illustrations, Filozof is proof of the variety of artists whose work has been woven in Aubusson over the years. Although the naïf style (or one which is at least influenced by folk art) is hardly over-represented (but we can mention here Mady de la Giraudière) : 8 of her designs have been woven by Tabard.Aubusson tapestry woven by the Tabard workshop. With label. Circa 1960. -
Les mauvaises herbes (Weeds)
A rare incursion into tapestry design by one better-known as a lover of books, an occasional illustrator, and a wine-grower.Aubusson tapestry woven by the Four workshop. With signed label, n°6/8. Circa 1980. -
Fleurs et feuilles (flowers and leaves)
Multi-talented artist (poet, lyricist, painter and even antiques dealer,…) Saint-Martin, who assisted Lurçat at the beginning of the 1950’s, started designing his own cartoons in 1956 and they were woven in the Braquenié workshop. His is a dream-like, stylised and dramatised world : here, symbols of order and discipline (the still life composition, the wrought iron balustrade...) contrast with the unsettling, unfettered profusion of the branches on each side.Aubusson tapestry woven by the Braquenié workshop. With label. Circa 1960. -
Composition
Aubusson tapestry woven by the Four workshop. N°2/6. Circa 1980.An artistic all-rounder, who defined himself as “neither a painter, nor a draughtsman, nor a poster artist, nor a writer, nor an engraver. My work is neither abstract nor figurative ... I do not pretend to understand my images, and everyone is free to understand them as they like. I have merely tried to represent my own imaginings, in the hope that others will be able to recognise their own in them”, Folon was an incredibly successful artist, from his illustrations for famous American magazines in the 1960’s, his many poster designs, the works he presented at the Biennials in Venice and in Sao Paolo to the television credits for Antenne 2,... There is therefore no reason to be surprised that he also turned his hand to tapestry design (his largest piece, 80m2 is exhibited at the Centre des Congrès in Monaco, woven, as all his other works in the genre, by the Four workshop), in his characteristic airy and understated style whose inspiration is not a thousand miles from that of his compatriot Magritte. The aesthetic employed in our tapestry is directly descended from watercolour (pale colours that melt into one another), his preferred medium (there is also a lithograph), which makes his work specific and a world away from that of other painter-cartoonists of the same period. -
Helios
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 Gobelins, 2016technical 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. His use of the « cloisonné » motif is frequent, be it on checkerboards, coats of arms ; here he uses a spiral of sections assembled in a helix (cf also “Haut zodiac” for example), whose circular shape with rays spinning outwards evokes the sun : and the title leaves no room for doubt. Bibliography : Tapisseries de Jean Lurçat 1939-1957, Pierre Vorms Editeur, 1957 Exhibition Catalogue Jean Lurçat, Nice, Musée des Ponchettes, 1968, ill. 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 Gérard Denizeau, Jean Lurçat, Liénart, 2013 Exhibition Catalogue Jean Lurçat, Meister der französischen Moderne, Halle, Kunsthalle Exhibition Catalogue Jean Lurçat au seul bruit du soleil, Paris, galerie des Gobelins, 2016Aubusson tapestry woven in the Picaud workshop. With signed label. Circa 1960. -
Eclosion (hatching)
Aubusson tapestry woven by the Legoueix workshop. With signed label, n°1/6. Circa 1970. It was in 1953 that Jean Picart le Doux proposed to Chaye to become his assistant and encouraged him to design tapestry cartoons : he would produce numerous bucolic cartoons, but also views of Normandy (Mont Saint Michel, Honfleur, regattas,…) from whence he came. Here is a thoroughly characteristic cartoon of this artist who specialises in pastures, hedges and woodland scenes. -
L'oiseau flamme (the flame bird)
Aubusson tapestry woven by the Berthaut workshop. With signed label. Circa 1960. Jean Picart le Doux is one of the foremost figures in the renaissance of the art of tapestry. His earliest contributions to the field date back to 1943 when he designed cartoons for the passenger ship “la Marseillaise”. A close associate of Lurçat, whose theories he would adopt (limited palette, numbered cartoons...), he was a founding member of the A.P.C.T. (Association des Peintres-cartonniers de Tapisserie), and soon after, a teacher at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs. The state gave him several commissions most of them at the Aubusson workshop, and some at the Gobelins : the most spectacular of these being for the University of Caen, the Theatre in Le Mans, the passenger ship France or the Prefecture of the Creuse département ... In as much as Picart le Doux’s aesthetic is close to that of Lurçat, so also is his inspiration and his subject matter, although in a register which is more decorative than symbolic, where he brings together heavenly bodies (the sun, the moon, the stars...), the elements, nature (wheat, vines, fish, birds...), man, literary quotation ... This lyrebird motif dates from 1954 and is taken from a larger and richer design incorporating a garden « à la française ». Picart le Doux habitually recycled elements from earlier designs. Bibliography : Marthe Belle-Joufray, Jean Picart le Doux, Publications filmées d’art et d’histoire, 1966 Maurice Bruzeau, Jean Picart le Doux, Murs de soleil, Editions Cercle d’art, 1972 Exhibition Catalogue, Jean Picart le Doux, tapisseries, Musée de Saint-Denis, 1976 Exhibition Catalogue Jean Picart le Doux, Musée de la Poste, 1980 -
Faisan d'ombre (Shadow pheasant)
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 Gobelins, 2016technical 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 Lurçat’s work, the motif of the cockerel can appear under different monikers : peacock, pheasant (limiting ourselves to the ornithological, because when the plastic representation presents symbolical value the variations are infinite). As for the use of a negative outline, it is a technique used also in the piece entitled “coq dentelle” [lacy cockerel] (a piece in its own right playing on different textiles) dating from 1946. 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, 2016Aubusson tapestry woven in the Caron workshop. With signed label. Circa 1950. -
Sphinx jaune (yellow hawk moth)
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. The motif of the butterfly is closely associated with his trip to Latin America and often figures in the exotic designs that were inspired by it. On occasion Lurçat designed vertical, oversized « portraits » of butterflies (« Sphinx bleu », « sphinx et coq ».... ), in a striking departure from scaled representation. 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, Jean Lurçat, Liénart, 2013 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 Pinton workshop. With illegible label. Circa 1950. -
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. -
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. -
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. -
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. -
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. -
Haute flamme (High flame)
Aubusson tapestry woven in the Goubely workshop. N°4/4. 1966. I became interested in the art of tapestry particularly because I was excited by the numbered cartoon technique consisting of the fabrication of a mental coloured image using a code…. Tapestry is an essential exercise. As I practised it, it is perhaps the desire to interrogate, down to the finest detail, a work which exists in two dimensions.” (quoted in the exhibition catalogue, Prassinos, rétrospective de l’oeuvre peint et dessiné, Puyricard, 1983). So much for the artist’s manifesto. Prassinos designed his first cartoons in 1951 (most of which, around 150, would be woven in the Goubely workshop); then he joined the A.P.C.T. (Association des Peintres-Cartonniers de Tapisserie). After several cartoons taking birds as their theme, Prassinos, like several other artists, despite being close to Lurçat, (Matégot, Wogensky…) turned resolutely towards abstraction, in a very personal style where sinuous shapes entwine in contrasting colours (often following a scheme of black-red-brown-beige). In a way there is in this cartoon a return to the figurative. However, more probably, the artist’s characteristic formal and chromatic conceptions are here allowed retrospectively to incarnate something which is generally, and paradoxically, impossible to represent and thus become conflagration, flame, wild fires (in Greece ? the Alpilles ?) Bibliography : Exhibition catalogue Mario Prassinos, tapisseries monumentales, Abbaye de Montmajour, Arles, 1974 Mario Prassinos, œuvre tissé, La Demeure, 1974, n°72 (Ill.) Exhibition catalogue Mario Prassinos, Tapisseries , Aubusson, Musée départemental de le Tapisserie, 1984 Exhibition catalogue Prassinos, Tapisseries, Angers, Musée Jean Lurçat et de la Tapisserie Contemporaine, 1988 -
L'oiseau lyre (the lyrebird)
Aubusson tapestry woven by the Pinton workshop. With label signed by the artist, n°3/6. Circa 1960. Jean Picart le Doux is one of the foremost figures in the renaissance of the art of tapestry. His earliest contributions to the field date back to 1943 when he designed cartoons for the passenger ship “la Marseillaise”. A close associate of Lurçat, whose theories he would adopt (limited palette, numbered cartoons...), he was a founding member of the A.P.C.T. (Association des Peintres-cartonniers de Tapisserie), and soon after, a teacher at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs. The state gave him several commissions most of them at the Aubusson workshop, and some at the Gobelins : the most spectacular of these being for the University of Caen, the Theatre in Le Mans, the passenger ship France or the Prefecture of the Creuse département ... In as much as Picart le Doux’s aesthetic is close to that of Lurçat, so also is his inspiration and his subject matter, although in a register which is more decorative than symbolic, where he brings together heavenly bodies (the sun, the moon, the stars...), the elements, nature (wheat, vines, fish, birds...), man, literary quotation ... This lyrebird motif dates from 1954 and is taken from a larger and richer design incorporating a garden « à la française ». Picart le Doux habitually recycled elements from earlier designs. Bibliography : Marthe Belle-Joufray, Jean Picart le Doux, Publications filmées d’art et d’histoire, 1966 Maurice Bruzeau, Jean Picart le Doux, Murs de soleil, Editions Cercle d’art, 1972 Exhibition Catalogue, Jean Picart le Doux, tapisseries, Musée de Saint-Denis, 1976 Exhibition Catalogue Jean Picart le Doux, Musée de la Poste, 1980 -
Nachtsonne (Nightsun)
Tapestry woven by the Münchener Gobelin Manufaktur. With signed label. Circa 1970.Holger was a student at the Ecole Nationale d’Art Décoratif d’Aubusson and worked with Lurçat before the latter’s death in 1966. He designed numerous dream-like cartoons woven by the Aubusson workshop. Now settled in the United States, he remains a tireless advocate for, and witness to, modern tapestry design, organising exhibitions and lectures on the subject. Some of his cartoons have been woven in the two workshops active in Germany, in Nuremberg and Munich, using Aubusson techniques. -
La nuit s'ouvre (Night opens)
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. Here stylised vegetation, white on a black background (as in Talbot’s photogrammes), appears as if torn to reveal a red stain against which is framed an owl : the title suggests hope, however the cartoon announces by its mutedness “the end of everything” as in the “Chant du Monde”. A similar piece is conserved at the Atelier-Musée des Tours Saint Laurent, in Saint-Céré. Bibliography : Cat. Expo. La tapisserie française, Musée d’art moderne, Paris, 1946 Claude Roy, Jean Lurçat, Pierre Cailler Editeur, 1956, ill. n°113 Cat. Expo. Jean Lurçat tapisseries nouvelles, Maison de la Pensée Française, 1956, n°6 Tapisseries de Jean Lurçat 1939-1957, Pierre Vorms Editeur, 1957, ill. n°109 Cat. Expo. Jean Lurçat, tapisseries de la fondation Rothmans, Musée de Metz, 1969 Cat. Expo. Lurçat, 10 ans après, Musée d’Art moderne de la ville de Paris, 1976, ill. Cat. 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 Cat. Expo. Dialogues avec Lurçat, Musées de Basse-Normandie, 1992 Cat. Expo. Jean Lurçat, Donation Simone Lurçat, Académie des Beaux-Arts, 2004 Gérard Denizeau, Jean Lurçat, Liénart, 2013, ill. n°131 I. Rooryck, Atelier-Musée départemental Jean Lurçat, 2015, ill. p.14 Cat. Expo. Jean Lurçat, Meister der französischen Moderne, Halle, Kunsthalle, 2016 Cat. Expo. Jean Lurçat au seul bruit du soleil, Paris, galerie des Gobelins, 2016Tapestry woven in the Simone André workshop. With label. Circa 1955. -
Reflets (reflections)
Aubusson tapestry woven by the Pinton workshop. With label, n°6/6. 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. Beneath the red sun, fish, insects , a lobster all frolic in a dream-like composition typical of the artist : numerous examples of these motifs can be found for instance in “Avant l’homme” Before man, woven by the Gobelins (cf Exhibition Catalogue “le Mobilier National et les Manufactures Nationales des Gobelins et de Beauvais sous la IVe République”, Beauvais 1997) -
Coq (rooster )
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. The cock, in various guises, variously bedecked, playing various roles, is an absolutely central figure in Lurçat’s bestiary, a recurrent motif reappearing in an infinite number of variations : what is particular about this version is the crown of ivy and the feather-leaves both of which are a reference to the animal-vegetable syntheses so characteristic of this artist. Bibliography : Cat. Expo. La tapisserie française, Musée d’art moderne, Paris, 1946 Tapisseries de Jean Lurçat 1939-1957, Pierre Vorms Editeur, 1957 Cat. Expo. Jean Lurçat, tapisseries de la fondation Rothmans, Musée de Metz, 1969 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, Jean Lurçat, Liénart, 2013 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 Goubely workshop. With faded label. Circa 1950. -
La huppe rouge (the red hoopooe)
Aubusson tapestry woven by the Picaud workshop. With signed label, n°3/6. Circa 1970.Originally from the Limousin region of France (and the daughter of the master glass-blower François Chigot), Delphine Bureau-Chigot devoted a large part of her creative energies (she was also a painter and a pastel artist) to tapestry design (something over a hundred) which were for the most part woven by the Picaud workshop, often evoking a dream-like world where animals (and notably birds) had an important place. -
Matégot, originally a decorator, then creator of artefacts and furniture (an activity he abandoned in 1959) met François Tabard in 1945 and gave him his first cartoons, first of all figurative then rapidly of abstract design in the 1950’s. He became a member of the A.P.C.T. (Association des Peintres Cartonniers de Tapisserie) in 1949, participated in many international exhibitions (Matégot, like Lurçat before him, was an untiring advocate of the art of tapestry) fulfilled numerous public commissions, sometimes of monumental proportions (“Rouen” 85m2 for the Préfecture of the Seine Maritime département, and also tapestries for Orly Airport, for the Maison de la Radio, for the IMF...) and designed no fewer than 629 cartoons up until the 1970’s. In 1990 the Matégot foundation for contemporary tapestry was inaugurated in Bethesda, U.S.A. Matégot is an artist, like Wogensky, Tourlière or Prassinos, who turns wool textiles resolutely towards the abstract: at first lyrical, geometric in the 70’s, exploiting various technical aspects of the loom : colour graduations, shading, irregularities... The lyrical treatment, alternating shadow and light, is characteristic of Matégot’s cartoons of the mid-1960’s : often dark, his tapestries of the period will reveal a shining shard of brightness : what better than the star Sirius to illustrate this ? Bibliography : Exhibition catalogue, Matégot, Angers, Musée Jean Lurçat et de la Tapisserie Contemporaine, 1990-1991 Patrick Favardin, Mathieu Matégot, Editions Norma, 2014
Sirius
Portalegre tapestry woven by the Fino workshop. With signed label, n°3/6. Circa 1965. -
Orion
Lurçat approached Saint-Saëns, originally a painter of murals, in 1940. And during the war the latter produced the first of his allegorical masterpieces, tapestries reflecting indignation, combat, resistance : “les Vierges folles (the foolish virgins), “Thésée et le Minotaure” (Theseus and the Minotaur). At the end of the war, as a natural development he joined up with Lurçat, whose convictions he shared (concerning a simplified palette, outlined cartoons with colours indicated by pre-ordained numbers, and the specific nature of tapestry design...) at the A.P.C.T. (Association des Peintres-cartonniers de Tapisserie). His universe, where the human figure, stretched, elongated, ooccupies an important place (particularly when compared to his companions Lurçat or Picart le Doux), pivots around traditional themes : woman, the Commedia dell’arte, Greek mythology... refined by the brilliance of the colours and the simplification of the layout. His work would evolve later, in the 1960’s, towards cartoons of a more lyrical design, almost abstract where elemental and cosmic forces would dominate. « Orion » was commissioned by Dr. Guilhem, Saint-Saëns’ brother-in-law... The wildly galoping horse carries Orion, the object of Diane’s love, off to the firmament where he will take his place amongst the constellations. The sense of movement, the agitation of the cloth, the rippling muscles of the horseman all anticipate “Thésée et le minotaure” (Theseus and the minotaur). 12 copies were made of Orion, all by the Tabard workshop, which is an indication of the considerable popularity of this cartoon. (Catalogue of the exhibition Saint-Saëns, oeuvre tissé, Aubusson, Musée départemental de la Tapisserie, 1987, p.10) This tapestry is a variant dating from 1943 where Sirius, Orion’s faithful hound, accompanies him (as in astronomy where Sirius, the star, is in close vicinity to the constellation of Orion). Bibliography : Exhibition catalogue Saint-Saëns, oeuvre tissé, Aubusson, Musée départemental de la Tapisserie, 1987 Exhibition catalogue Marc Saint-Saëns, tapisseries, 1935-1979, Angers, Musée Jean Lurçat et de la Tapisserie Contemporaine, 1997-1998, ill. p.22Aubusson tapestry woven by the Tabard workshop. 1943. -
La chouette (the owl )
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. This choice of a vertical rectangular format containing a delineated circular motif against a burgundy background recurrs regularly in Lurçat’s work in the later 1940’s (cf. “Bosquet” for example). If the owl motif referred to in the title is indeed often used by Lurçat, in this particular example it more closely resembles a cockerel, another frequently recurring motif, a confusion in which this artist delighted. Bibliography : Cat. Expo. La tapisserie française, Musée d’art moderne, Paris, 1946 Tapisseries de Jean Lurçat 1939-1957, Pierre Vorms Editeur, 1957 Cat. Expo. Jean Lurçat, tapisseries de la fondation Rothmans, Musée de Metz, 1969 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, Jean Lurçat, Liénart, 2013 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 Tabard workshop. With label. Circa 1945. -
Bouquet d'octobre (october bouquet)
Aubusson tapestry woven in the Legoueix workshop. With label, n°5/6. Circa 1980.It was in 1953 that Jean Picart le Doux proposed to Chaye to become his assistant and encouraged him to design tapestry cartoons : he would produce numerous bucolic cartoons, but also views of Normandy (Mont Saint Michel, Honfleur, regattas,...) whence he came. The theme of the bouquet is omnipresent in Chaye’s work ; it allows him seasonal or chromatic associations of great decorative value. -
Coquerelle (Pasque flower)
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. Rather than the purple colour, it is the sound of the name of the flower that was the effect desired by Jullien for the title of this piece. It is contemporaneous with another piece titled “Capucine” which was woven to the same dimensions. Bibliography : Exhibition catalogue Hommage à Louis-Marie Jullien, Aubusson, Musée départemental de la Tapisserie, 1983Aubusson tapestry woven in the Legoueix workshop. With label, n°4/6. 1967. -
Matines (matins)
Henri Ilhe, who came to the design of tapestry cartoons late on in his career, still managed to produce from 1964 onwards a considerable number (more than 120, all woven by the Tabard workshop) in an urbane style, incorporating birds and butterflies sporting in and around the gnarled branches of trees and bushes. The title of this piece evokes a certain community of spirit with Dom Robert in the mingling of rural concerns and monastic life.Aubusson tapestry woven in the Tabard workshop. With signed label, n°5. Circa 1970. -
Hommage à Yukio Mishima (A tribute to Yukio Mishima)
Tapestry woven in the Saint-Cyr workshop. With signed label, n°EA1. 1972.Jacques Brachet was an important protagonist of the « New Tapestry » movement ; woven by Pierre Daquin, exhibited by the « La Demeure » gallery in the 1970’s, his innovative and experimental approach to the medium, from the 1950’s onwards, was recognised by the Centre International d’études pédagogiques in Sèvres, by the scenography of “La Tapisserie en France, 1945 – 1985, la tradition vivante” at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, and by his inclusion in various promotional events right up to the present day. Brachet travelled to Japan in 1972. The specific techniques of his tapestry designs (as opposed to painting) : innovative use of shape and texture, themes taken from the natural world... would take off in new directions as a result. Paradoxically this particulat hommage to one of the most flamboyant and tragic figures of post-war Japan is, as a textile object, rather tame respecting the 2 dimensional norm, a classic wool weave... The brightly coloured motifs (dominated by a red disk-shaped sun) are in contrast with the white background, like a shard of light on the blade of the seppuku. Bibliography : Madeleine Jarry, la tapisserie art du XXe siècle, Office du livre, 1974, ill. n°157 -
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. -
Le feu (Fire)
Lurçat approached Saint-Saëns, originally a painter of murals, in 1940. And during the war the latter produced the first of his allegorical masterpieces, tapestries reflecting indignation, combat, resistance : “les Vierges folles (the foolish virgins), “Thésée et le Minotaure” (Theseus and the Minotaur). At the end of the war, as a natural development he joined up with Lurçat, whose convictions he shared (concerning a simplified palette, outlined cartoons with colours indicated by pre-ordained numbers, and the specific nature of tapestry design…) at the A.P.C.T. (Association des Peintres-cartonniers de Tapisserie). His universe, where the human figure, stretched, elongated, ooccupies an important place (particularly when compared to his companions Lurçat or Picart le Doux), pivots around traditional themes : woman, the Commedia dell’arte, Greek mythology… refined by the brilliance of the colours and the simplification of the layout. His work would evolve later, in the 1960’s, towards cartoons of a more lyrical design, almost abstract where elemental and cosmic forces would dominate. « Le Feu » is the 4th in the series « les Quatre éléments », commissioned by Jansen, woven by Dumontet and exhibited in 1946 at the Musée d’Art Moderne. Myths and allegory were a frequent source of inspiration for the artist at this period : “Orion”, “Diane”, “Thésée et le Minotaure” are all contemporary. Here the muscular figure of a Vulcanite blacksmith whose colour evokes glowing embers in dark relief against a flaming background leaves the observer with a long-lasting impression. Bibliography : Exhibition catalogue La tapisserie française du Moyen-âge à nos jours, Paris, Musée d’art moderne, 1946 Exhibition catalogue Saint-Saëns, Paris, galerie La Demeure, 1970, ill. Exhibition catalogue Saint-Saëns, the tapestries, Aubusson, Musée départemental de la Tapisserie, 1987 Exhibition catalogue Marc Saint-Saëns, tapestries, 1935-1979, Angers, Musée Jean Lurçat et de la Tapisserie Contemporaine 1997-1998Aubusson tapestry woven by the Glaudin-Brivet workshop. With signed label, n°EX. 1945. -
Figure de trois (Triplet)
Tapestry woven by the Saint-Cyr workshop. With signed label, n°1/6. Circa 1970. An unknown artist, whose inspiration finds its source in the instruments and theory of Music ; a geometric evocation of a keyboard and the stave serve as a framework for the cartoon. -
Concerto
Tapestry woven by the Saint-Cyr workshop. With signed label, n°1/6. Circa 1970. An unknown artist, whose inspiration finds its source in the instruments and theory of Music ; a geometric evocation of a keyboard and the stave serve as a framework for the cartoon. -
Jean Picart le Doux is one of the foremost figures in the renaissance of the art of tapestry. His earliest contributions to the field date back to 1943 when he designed cartoons for the passenger ship “la Marseillaise”. A close associate of Lurçat, whose theories he would adopt (limited palette, numbered cartoons…), he was a founding member of the A.P.C.T. (Association des Peintres-cartonniers de Tapisserie), and soon after, a teacher at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs. The state gave him several commissions most of them at the Aubusson workshop, and some at the Gobelins : the most spectacular of these being for the University of Caen, the Theatre in Le Mans, the passenger ship France or the Prefecture of the Creuse département … In as much as Picart le Doux’s aesthetic is close to that of Lurçat, so also is his insipiration and his subject matter, although in a register which is more decorative than symbolic, where he brings together heavenly bodies (the sun, the moon, the stars…), the elements, nature (wheat, vines, fish, birds…), man, literary quotation … « Poissons-voile » reproduces the central motif of « Rouge de Chine » (Bruzeau n°178), from 1969, with its seaweed, coral and fish, one of this artist’s classic pieces. It is notable that Picart le Doux is probably the cartonnier who most often had recourse to red backgrounds of varying hues. Bibliography : Marthe Belle-Joufray, Jean Picart le Doux, Publications filmées d’art et d’histoire, 1966 Maurice Bruzeau, Jean Picart le Doux, Murs de soleil, Editions Cercle d’art, 1972 Exhibition catalogue Jean Picart le Doux Tapisseries, Musée municipal d’Art et d’Histoire, Saint-Denis, 1976 Exhibition catalogue Jean Picart le Doux, Musée de la Poste, 1980
Poissons-voile (Fish-sail)
Aubusson tapestry woven by the Pinton workshop Complete with certificate of origin signed by the artist, n°5/6. 1969. -
Epouvantail de lunes (Moon scarecrow)
Aubusson tapestry woven by the Pérathon workshop Complete with certificate of origin signed by the artist, n°1. Circa 1970. Better known for his machine woven panels reminiscent of the work of Picart le Doux, Hurtu also made a few rather more inspired cartoons which were hand woven. -
Chasse à courre (Riding to hounds)
A contemporary take on a traditional tapestry theme (for example Maximilien’s hunting scenes among others) with an autumnal colour scheme. Commere was one of the numerous figurative artists whose work was featured by the Moulin de Vauboyen and Pierre de Tartas.Tapestry woven in the Moulin de Vauboyen workshop. Circa 1970. -
Composition
Claude Bleynie discovered the art of tapestry with Jean Picart le Doux in 1952. He exhibited at the La Demeure gallery (from 1958) and participated in the main exhibitions devoted to mural art. His tapestry production counts more than 300 cartoons, mainly realised by the Andraud workshop. Bleynie, in a more abstract vein (which can also be found in his tapestries) notably designed cartoons for rugs which were intended for the luxurious appartment christened “Ile de France” on the ocean liner “France”. Bleynie, who also worked as a set designer in the theatre, designed numerous cartoons inspired by Dance and featuring animated masked and winged figures in fairy-like evocations.Aubusson tapestry woven in the Andraud workshop. Circa 1960. -
Foujita is one of a number of artists whose work was woven at Bièvres at the Moulin de Vauboyen (hence the mark MV woven into the tapestries), which was transformed by Pierre de Tartas into an arts centre in 1959 and devoted to figurative art. Many noteworthy names would pass through including Cocteau, Foujita, Erni, Volti ... among others, who would produce much work, often monumental, as well as realisations in the applied arts (notably book illustrations) Foujita realised only a few tapestry cartoons, all of which were produced at Bièvres by Pierre de Tartas. In this particular case, unlike the rest of his production, his style is different from that of his paintings : almost monochrome, stylised (quite different from the lithe brushwork of the artist); as for the biblical theme, it can be seen as the result of his recent conversion to catholicism. Another tapestry, of similar dimensions and subject matter, but in a differing, lighter colour scheme, was also woven at Bièvres.
Adam et Eve
Tapestry woven in the Moulin de Vauboyen workshop. 1967. -
Les nymphéas (the waterlilies)
Aubusson tapestry woven in the Pinton workshop. With label, n°6/6. 1968.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 makes the subject, previously referenced by Monet, his own in his habitual, cubist (and tending towards the abstract) style, characterised by lines and circular shapes in an exalted blue and green colour scheme. His early passion for horticulture, which was originally to be his profession, here echoes that of Monet in Giverny. Bibliography : Exhibition catalogue Hilaire, œuvre tissé, galerie Verrière, 1970, ill. Exhibition catalogue, du trait à la lumière, Musée Départemental Georges de la Tour at Vic-sur-Seille, 2010. -
Le Méridien étoilé (the starry meridian)
Aubusson tapestry woven in the Berthaut workshop. circa 1948.Jean Picart le Doux is one of the foremost figures in the renaissance of the art of tapestry. His earliest contributions to the field date back to 1943 when he designed cartoons for the passenger ship “la Marseillaise”. A close associate of Lurçat, whose theories he would adopt (limited palette, numbered cartoons…), he was a founding member of the A.P.C.T. (Association des Peintres-cartonniers de Tapisserie), and soon after, a teacher at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs. The state gave him several commissions most of them at the Aubusson workshop, and some at the Gobelins : the most spectacular of these being for the University of Caen, the Theatre in Le Mans, the passenger ship France or the Prefecture of the Creuse département … In as much as Picart le Doux’s aesthetic is close to that of Lurçat, so also is his inspiration and his subject matter, although in a register which is more decorative than symbolic, where he brings together heavenly bodies (the sun, the moon, the stars…), the elements, nature (wheat, vines, fish, birds…), man, literary quotation … This cartoon is extracted from « Cosmogonie » (Bruzeau n°11), from 1948, here presented in a vertical format and without featuring the quotation from Goethe. The theme of the Astrolabe will be recurrent in his work, notably his eponymous tapestry of 1955. Bibliography : Marthe Belle-Jouffray, Jean Picart le Doux, Publications filmées d’art et d’histoire, 1966 Maurice Bruzeau, Jean Picart le Doux, Murs de soleil, Editions Cercle d’art, 1972 Exhibition Catalogue, Jean Picart le Doux, tapisseries, Musée de Saint-Denis, 1976 Exhibition Catalogue Jean Picart le Doux, Musée de la Poste, 1980 -
Rendez-vous des oiseaux (the bird's meeting point)
Aubusson tapestry woven in the Berthaut workshop. With label. 1951.Jean Picart le Doux is one of the foremost figures in the renaissance of the art of tapestry. His earliest contributions to the field date back to 1943 when he designed cartoons for the passenger ship “la Marseillaise”. A close associate of Lurçat, whose theories he would adopt (limited palette, numbered cartoons...), he was a founding member of the A.P.C.T. (Association des Peintres-cartonniers de Tapisserie), and soon after, a teacher at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs. The state gave him several commissions most of them at the Aubusson workshop, and some at the Gobelins : the most spectacular of these being for the University of Caen, the Theatre in Le Mans, the passenger ship France or the Prefecture of the Creuse département ... In as much as Picart le Doux’s aesthetic is close to that of Lurçat, so also is his insipiration and his subject matter, although in a register which is more decorative than symbolic, where he brings together heavenly bodies (the sun, the moon, the stars...), the elements, nature (wheat, vines, fish, birds...), man, literary quotation ... Birds are a recurring motif of the artist in the first half of the 50s, as well as the flames punctuated by dots on the rim, one of Picart le Doux's signatures. Moreover, the limited chromatic range is reminiscent of traditional "verdures" tapestries. This tapestry is reproduced in Bruzeau's book, as No. 30. Bibliography : Maurice Bruzeau, Jean Picart le Doux, Murs de soleil, Editions cercle d'art, 1972 -
Concert champêtre (Outdoor concert)
Needle-work tapestry. Circa 1965. « It is thus easy to understand that, having based my painting on my love of tapestry, it was relatively easy for me, and particularly tempting, to produce tapestries which were faithful to my painting” writes the artist in the exhibition catalogue for the 1970 show at the Galerie Verrière. It is not until 1961 that he started making designs (over 50) both for woven tapestries (at Aubusson, but also for the Mobilier National with, on occasion, the collaboration of Pierre Baudoin), but also those employing needlepoint. The artist’s very audacious palette is immediately recognisable in these cartons, with their use of primary colours or, as here, revolving around a very vivid pink with a rather dislocated storyline between the concert in the foreground and the hunting scene in the distance. Provenance : Elmina Auger collection Bibliography : Exhibition catalogue, Lapicque tapisseries, Paris, galerie Villand & Galanis, 1964-1965 Exhibition catalogue, Lapicque, Lyons, Galerie Verrière 1970 -
Annick
Tapestry woven by the Angers workshop. With label, n°1/6. 1968.Elie Grekoff, whose aesthetic is similar to that of Lurçat, designed over 300 cartons The motif of a sun radiating foliage is a classic with this artist ; it is possible that the title refers to a weaver at the Atelier de Tapisserie d’Angers (Angers Tapestry Workshop), which opened in the same year of 1968 and where Grekoff was the first painter-cartonnier to be produced. -
Cadran solaire (Sundial)
It was in 1953 that Jean Picart le Doux proposed to Chaye to become his assistant and encouraged him to design tapestry cartoons : he would produce numerous bucolic cartoons, but also views of Normandy (Mont Saint Michel, Honfleur, regattas,…) from whence he came. In order to express Nature’s harmony, Chaye includes in this characteristic scene of a river bank animated by flowers and animals, a sign of human presence, static and discreet : a sundial.Aubusson tapestry woven in the Legoueix workshop. With signed label, n°6/6. Circa 1970. -
Petite harpe des bois (little harp of the woods)
Tapestry woven in the Picaud workshop. Complete with certificate of origin signed by the artist's widow, n°3/6. Circa 1975. Jean Picart le Doux is one of the foremost figures in the renaissance of the art of tapestry. His earliest contributions to the field date back to 1943 when he designed cartoons for the passenger ship “la Marseillaise”. A close associate of Lurçat, whose theories he would adopt (limited palette, numbered cartoons...), he was a founding member of the A.P.C.T. (Association des Peintres-cartonniers de Tapisserie), and soon after, a teacher at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs. The state gave him several commissions most of them at the Aubusson workshop, and some at the Gobelins : the most spectacular of these being for the University of Caen, the Theatre in Le Mans, the passenger ship France or the Prefecture of the Creuse département ... In as much as Picart le Doux’s aesthetic is close to that of Lurçat, so also is his insipiration and his subject matter, although in a register which is more decorative than symbolic, where he brings together heavenly bodies (the sun, the moon, the stars...), the elements, nature (wheat, vines, fish, birds...), man, literary quotation ... This cartoon refers back to « la harpe des forêts”, the sylvan harp, of 1953 (Bruzeau n°45). The link between music and nature is a leitmotiv in the work of Picart le Doux : these tapestries are often animated by birds outlined agains the vertical background of the strings. Bibliography : Maurice Bruzeau, Jean Picart le Doux, Murs de soleil, Editions Cercle d’art, 1972 Exhibition catalogue Jean Picart le Doux Tapisseries, Musée municipal d’Art et d’Histoire, Saint-Denis, 1976 Exhibition catalogue Jean Picart le Doux, Musée de la Poste, 1980 Exhibition Catalogue le salon de musique, église du château, Felletin, 2002, ill. p.54 -
La Lyre (The lyre)
Aubusson tapestry woven in the Pinton workshop. Circa 1960. Jean Picart le Doux is one of the foremost figures in the renaissance of the art of tapestry. His earliest contributions to the field date back to 1943 when he designed cartoons for the passenger ship “la Marseillaise”. A close associate of Lurçat, whose theories he would adopt (limited palette, numbered cartoons...), he was a founding member of the A.P.C.T. (Association des Peintres-cartonniers de Tapisserie), and soon after, a teacher at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs. The state gave him several commissions most of them at the Aubusson workshop, and some at the Gobelins : the most spectacular of these being for the University of Caen, the Theatre in Le Mans, the passenger ship France or the Prefecture of the Creuse département ... In as much as Picart le Doux’s aesthetic is close to that of Lurçat, so also is his insipiration and his subject matter, although in a register which is more decorative than symbolic, where he brings together heavenly bodies (the sun, the moon, the stars...), the elements, nature (wheat, vines, fish, birds...), man, literary quotation ... The image of the lyre, and also that of the harp, is one of the leitmotivs of the artist. Representative of Apollo, the lyre regularly appears with the sun (cf for example “Soleil-lyre”; Bruzeau n°82), but also as a symbol of the passing of time (similar to the use of the pendulum in the XVIIIth century, interestingly one of the artist’s cartoons is titled “the Pendulum”, auction in Lille 17.06.01 n°464) : “les Phases du temps” (the phases of time, cf Armelle Bouchet Mazas, le paquebot France, Editions Norma, 2006, p.72) which adorned the 1st class smoking room on the France. Strangely enough, our tapestry does not figure in Bruzeau’s book : possibly because it was specially commissioned for a scientific or industrial organisation, if one considers the form which appears with the lyre. Bibliography : Maurice Bruzeau, Jean Picart le Doux, Murs de soleil, Editions Cercle d'art, 1972 Armelle Bouchet Mazas, le paquebot France, Editions Norma, 2006 -
Holger was a student at the Ecole Nationale d’Art Décoratif d’Aubusson and worked with Lurçat before the latter’s death in 1966. He designed numerous dream-like cartoons woven by the Aubusson workshop. Now settled in the United States, he remains a tireless advocate for, and witness to, modern tapestry design, organising exhibitions and lectures on the subject.
Kosmische Vision (Cosmic vision)
Aubusson tapestry woven in the Pintron frères workshop. With certificate of origin. Circa 1970. -
L’arbre de vie (Life tree)
Henri Ilhe, who came to the design of tapestry cartoons late on in his career, still managed to produce from 1964 onwards a considerable number (more than 120, all woven by the Tabard workshop) in an urbane style, incorporating birds and butterflies sporting in and around the gnarled branches of trees and bushes. Should this be taken as an interpretation of the tree of life as a symbol of Creation as mentioned in various religious traditions, or more simply as an allegory for Nature with its budding leaves irrigated by a meandering stream ?Aubusson tapestry woven in theTabard workshop. With signed label, n°5/8. Circa 1970. -
Les Jumelles (the twins)
Tapestry woven in the Moulin de Vauboyen workshop. With signed label, n°3/8. 1966.Carzou is one of a number of artists whose work was woven at Bièvres at the Moulin de Vauboyen (hence the mark MV woven into the tapestries), which was transformed by Pierre de Tartas into an arts centre in 1959 and devoted to figurative art. Many noteworthy names would pass through including Cocteau, Foujita, Erni, Volti ... among others, who would produce much work, often monumental, as well as realisations in the applied arts (notably book illustrations) Carzou was most noted at the start of his career as a decorative painter (notably for the theatre), and his work for tapestry is relatively rare. His style is immediately recognisable in this cartoon, the busy hatching illustrating dream-like subjects, not unlike work produced by Lucien Coutaud. -
Cuivres (Copper-coloured)
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. Copper-coloured is used to describe certain butterflies whose wings recall this brightly coloured metal. This cartoon is a re-take on “Sphinx and Cockerel” (but without the cockerel) in a highly decorative positive/negative contrast of yellow against a black background. 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, Jean Lurçat, Liénart, 2013 Exhibition Catalogue Jean Lurçat au seul bruit du soleil, Paris, galerie des Gobelins, 2016Aubusson tapestry woven by the Pinton workshop. With signed label. Circa 1950. -
Faisan feu (Pheasant Fire)
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. This profile of the head of a cockerel appears in various cartoons (« Feux bleus », « la chanson de Roland »,…) : it appears, with its almond-shaped halo, as if in reserve, shining brightly against the black background. The title of this piece allows a play on words with the French “faire feu” an expression meaning to shoot. 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, Jean Lurçat, Liénart, 2013 Exhibition Catalogue Jean Lurçat au seul bruit du soleil, Paris, galerie des Gobelins, 2016Aubusson tapestry woven in the Tabard workshop. With signed label. Circa 1960. -
Le chant du matin (morning song)
Aubusson tapestry woven in the Pinton workshop. N°5/6. 1965. Jean Picart le Doux is one of the foremost figures in the renaissance of the art of tapestry. His earliest contributions to the field date back to 1943 when he designed cartoons for the passenger ship “la Marseillaise”. A close associate of Lurçat, whose theories he would adopt (limited palette, numbered cartoons...), he was a founding member of the A.P.C.T. (Association des Peintres-cartonniers de Tapisserie), and soon after, a teacher at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs. The state gave him several commissions most of them at the Aubusson workshop, and some at the Gobelins : the most spectacular of these being for the University of Caen, the Theatre in Le Mans, the passenger ship France or the Prefecture of the Creuse département ... In as much as Picart le Doux’s aesthetic is close to that of Lurçat, so also is his inspiration and his subject matter, although in a register which is more decorative than symbolic, where he brings together heavenly bodies (the sun, the moon, the stars...), the elements, nature (wheat, vines, fish, birds...), man, literary quotation ... An amusing allegory of a cock-harp, luminescent and joyous : if the title and the motif itself are reminiscent of the work of Jean Lurçat, the particularly decorative character of this piece is typical of Picart le Doux. Bibliography : Maurice Bruzeau, Jean Picart le Doux, Murs de soleil, Editions Cercle d’art, 1972, ill. n°147 Exhibition Catalogue, Jean Picart le Doux, tapisseries, Musée de Saint-Denis, 1976 Exhibition Catalogue Jean Picart le Doux, Musée de la Poste, 1980 -
Violoncelle (cello)
Tapestry perhaps woven by the Dumontet workshop. 1947. Lurçat approached Saint-Saëns, originally a painter of murals, in 1940. And during the war the latter produced the first of his allegorical masterpieces, tapestries reflecting indignation, combat, resistance : “les Vierges folles (the foolish virgins), “Thésée et le Minotaure” (Theseus and the Minotaur). At the end of the war, as a natural development he joined up with Lurçat, whose convictions he shared (concerning a simplified palette, outlined cartoons with colours indicated by pre-ordained numbers, and the specific nature of tapestry design...) at the A.P.C.T. (Association des Peintres-cartonniers de Tapisserie). His universe, where the human figure, stretched, elongated, ooccupies an important place (particularly when compared to his companions Lurçat or Picart le Doux), pivots around traditional themes : woman, the Commedia dell’arte, Greek mythology... refined by the brilliance of the colours and the simplification of the layout. His work would evolve later, in the 1960’s, towards cartoons of a more lyrical design, almost abstract where elemental and cosmic forces would dominate. Once more a cartoon which takes music as its theme, a leitmotiv for this artist. Amusingly, and in stark contrast to the importance Saint-Saëns gives to the human figure in his work, the title evokes the instrument rather than the instrumentalist . Bibliography : Exhibition catalogue Saint-Saëns, galerie La Demeure, 1970 Exhibition catalogue Saint-Saëns, the tapestries, Aubusson, Musée départemental de la Tapisserie, 1987 Exhibition catalogue Marc Saint-Saëns, tapestries, 1935-1979, Angers, Musée Jean Lurçat et de la Tapisserie Contemporaine 1997-1998 -
Sphinx gris (grey hawk moth)
Aubusson tapestry woven in the Braquenié workshop. With signed label. Circa 1955. 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. The grey hawk moth (or occasionally yellow, in another cartoon), moths and butterflies are a leitmotiv in Lurçat’s work. Here the colours are less contrasted than is his wont, in a highly nuanced composition. 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, Jean Lurçat, Liénart, 2013 Exhibition Catalogue Jean Lurçat au seul bruit du soleil, Paris, galerie des Gobelins, 2016 -
Feux du soir (Evening sparkles)
Aubusson tapestry woven in the Simone André workshop. Complete with signed label. Circa 1970. Edmond Dubrunfaut can be considered as the great 20th century renovator of the Belgian tapestry tradition. He founded a weavers’ workshop in Tournai as early as 1942, then, in 1947, created the Centre de Rénovation de la Tapisserie de Tournai. He produced for various Belgian workshops (Chaudoir, de Wit,...) numerous cartoons destined notably to adorn Belgian embassies throughout the world. Moreover, Dubrunfaut was a teacher of monumental art forms at the Academie des Beaux-Arts de Mons from 1947 to 1978 and then, in 1979, contributed to the creation of the Fondation de la tapisserie, des arts du tissu et des arts muraux de Tournai, a veritable heritage centre for the art of the tapestry in Wallonie. His style, characterised by figuration, strong colour contrasts, draws direct inspiration from nature and animal life (as with Perrot, for example, this artist has a net predilection for birdlife). Between a sunflower (a recurrent flower in Dubrunfaut’s work) and hazlenuts, scorning any reference to scale, the squirrels go about their business of procuring food : from this humdrum task, Dubrunfaut produces, by way of his title, a poetic effect in a dreamlike style. -
La harpe des forêts (harp of the forests)
Tapestry woven in the Berthaut workshop. Complete with certificate of origin. 1953. Jean Picart le Doux is one of the foremost figures in the renaissance of the art of tapestry. His earliest contributions to the field date back to 1943 when he designed cartoons for the passenger ship “la Marseillaise”. A close associate of Lurçat, whose theories he would adopt (limited palette, numbered cartoons...), he was a founding member of the A.P.C.T. (Association des Peintres-cartonniers de Tapisserie), and soon after, a teacher at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs. The state gave him several commissions most of them at the Aubusson workshop, and some at the Gobelins : the most spectacular of these being for the University of Caen, the Theatre in Le Mans, the passenger ship France or the Prefecture of the Creuse département ... In as much as Picart le Doux’s aesthetic is close to that of Lurçat, so also is his inspiration and his subject matter, although in a register which is more decorative than symbolic, where he brings together heavenly bodies (the sun, the moon, the stars...), the elements, nature (wheat, vines, fish, birds...), man, literary quotation ... The tree/ harp is recurrent with Picart le Doux (occasionally one can find also a tree/ lyre, Bruzeau n° 44) reflecting his sensitivity to the inter-penetration of Nature and Music, and also to the decorative interest of multicoloured string-stripes, here set against a green, humus-scented background. Bibliography : Maurice Bruzeau, Jean Picart le Doux, Murs de soleil, Editions Cercle d’art, 1972, ill. n°45 Exhibition Catalogue, Jean Picart le Doux, tapisseries, Musée de Saint-Denis, 1976 Exhibition Catalogue Jean Picart le Doux, Musée de la Poste, 1980 -
Dragon dans la nuit (a dragon in the night)
Aubusson tapestry woven in the Pinton workshop. Complete with certificate of origin signed by the artist, n°1/6. Circa 1965. Matégot, originally a decorator, then creator of artefacts and furniture (an activity he abandoned in 1959) met François Tabard in 1945 and gave him his first cartoons, first of all figurative then rapidly of abstract design in the 1950’s. He became a member of the A.P.C.T. (Association des Peintres Cartonniers de Tapisserie) in 1949, participated in many international exhibitions (Matégot, like Lurçat before him, was an untiring advocate of the art of tapestry) fulfilled numerous public commissions, sometimes of monumental proportions (“Rouen” 85m2 for the Préfecture of the Seine Maritime département, and also tapestries for Orly Airport, for the Maison de la Radio, for the IMF...) and designed no fewer than 629 cartoons up until the 1970’s. In 1990 the Matégot foundation for contemporary tapestry was inaugurated in Bethesda, U.S.A. Matégot is an artist, like Wogensky, Tourlière or Prassinos, who turns wool textiles resolutely towards the abstract: at first lyrical, geometric in the 70’s, exploiting various technical aspects of the loom : colour graduations, shading, irregularities... The cartoon is characterised by the habitual contrast of light and shadow, typical of those of this period ; the title, however, conveys a more figurative context, evoking a fantastic beast breathing flames (and indeed illustrated in fire) to disperse the darkness. Bibliography : Exhibition catalogue, Matégot, Angers, Musée Jean Lurçat et de la Tapisserie Contemporaine, 1990-1991 Patrick Favardin, Mathieu Matégot, Editions Norma, 2014 -
le tiercelet (the sparrow hawk)
Aubusson tapestry woven by the Legoueix workshop. Complete with certificate of origin signed by the artist's beneficiary, n° E.A.1 1942. Elie Maingonnat governed the Ecole Nationale des Arts Décoratifs d’Aubusson from 1930 until 1958 where he took over from Marium Martin (who already recommended the use of a limited number of colours and the use of hachures, a similar technique to hatching) of whom he was a pupil. As well as assuming the responsibilities of his position, Maingonnat devoted himself to designing cartoons : motifs of dense vegetation animated by the presence of a few animals, both of which were inspired by the flora and fauna of the Limousin area of France revitalising the traditional theme of greenery used in the XVIIth and XVIIIth centuries. This cartoon is typical of Maingonnat’s work : local flora and fauna (here a diminutive sparrow hawk among gentians on the bank of a mountain stream) are illustrated in a limited grey-green spectrum which is reflected and emphasised by the browns of the stones in the river. Bibliographie : Exhibition Catalogue Elie Maingonnat, Aubusson, Musée départemental de la tapisserie, 1986-1987, Ill. -
Le phénix (the phoenix)
Aubusson tapestry woven in the Hamot workshop. Complete with label signed by the artist, n°EA. 1965. Jean Picart le Doux is one of the foremost figures in the renaissance of the art of tapestry. His earliest contributions to the field date back to 1943 when he designed cartoons for the passenger ship “la Marseillaise”. A close associate of Lurçat, whose theories he would adopt (limited palette, numbered cartoons...), he was a founding member of the A.P.C.T. (Association des Peintres-cartonniers de Tapisserie), and soon after, a teacher at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs. The state gave him several commissions most of them at the Aubusson workshop, and some at the Gobelins : the most spectacular of these being for the University of Caen, the Theatre in Le Mans, the passenger ship France or the Prefecture of the Creuse département ... In as much as Picart le Doux’s aesthetic is close to that of Lurçat, so also is his inspiration and his subject matter, although in a register which is more decorative than symbolic, where he brings together heavenly bodies (the sun, the moon, the stars...), the elements, nature (wheat, vines, fish, birds...), man, literary quotation ... « Le Phénix » (The Phoenix) (An identical lithograph exists also), a subject inspired by legend (a rare event in the work of Picard le Doux) reproduces a chromatic harmony of yellow motifs against a red background typical of this particular artist. Bibliography : Maurice Bruzeau, Jean Picart le Doux, Murs de soleil, Editions Cercle d’art, 1972, ill. n°162 Exhibition Catalogue, Jean Picart le Doux, tapisseries, Musée de Saint-Denis, 1976 Exhibition Catalogue Jean Picart le Doux, Musée de la Poste, 1980 -
Adam et Eve
Aubusson tapestry woven by the Robert Four workshop. With label, n°EA 1/2. Circa 1990. A specialist in the painting of murals, particularly on volcanic stone, Francesca Guerrier, whose style can be described as figurative influenced by cubism, concentrated mainly on the human figure and produced much art of religious inspiration. The picture from which this tapestry is produced is reproduced on the cover of a book “Peintures bibliques de Francesca Guerrier”, éditions du cerf, 1998. -
Fleur de roc (rock flower)
Aubusson tapestry woven in the Legoueix workshop. n°2/4. Circa 1970. Originally a sculptor exploiting very diverse materials (steel, concrete, clay…), Borderie came to tapestry with immense enthusiasm in the 1950’s with the weaving of his first cartoon in 1957. Receiving encouragement from Denise Majorel, he was awarded the Grand Prix National de la Tapisserie in 1962. In 1974 he was appointed as director at the Ecole Nationale des Arts Décoratifs at Aubusson but he resigned from this post shortly thereafter. He designed over 500 painted cartoons, abstracts using simple shapes, shading in a limited palette of colours and weaving with gros points. A dynamic abstraction with a limited colour scheme running from orange to brown, abstract motifs which play on the plastic effect of light passing through the colours : a classic cartoon from André Borderie. Bibliography : Exhibition catalogue André Borderie « pour l’homme simplement », Angers, Musée Jean Lurçat et de la Tapisserie Contemporaine 1998. J.J. et B. Wattel, André Borderie et la tapisserie d'Aubusson, Editions Louvre Victoire, 2018, ill. p.22 -
les oiseaux (birds)
Aubusson tapestry woven in the Legoueix workshop. n°4/6. Circa 1970. It was in 1953 that Jean Picart le Doux proposed to Chaye to become his assistant and encouraged him to design tapestry cartoons : he would produce numerous bucolic cartoons, but also views of Normandy (Mont Saint Michel, Honfleur, regattas,...) whence he came. Here birds and trelliswork cohabit in a style very reminiscent of Picart le Doux. -
Abatonn
Tapestry woven in the Saint-Cyr workshop. Complete with certificate of origin signed by the artist, n°EA1. Circa 1980. Originally an engraver (Prix de Rome, intaglio technique in 1942), Jean-Louis Viard designed his first tapestry cartoons in the mid 1950’s. At first his work was figurative (he was collaborating at the time with Picart Le Doux), but then he evolved along the same lines as many other painter-cartoonists of the period (Matégot, Tourlière or Prassinos,...) towards abstraction. He produced scores of cartoons working up until the 2000’s, in parallel to his work as a painter and engraver, but throughout revealing a particular interest for the use of contrasting materials and textures in the tradition of the “Nouvelle Tapisserie” of which Pierre Daquin was one of the leading lights. The inspiration for his motifs, sometimes metaphysical (“Mémoires” Memories, “Destins” Destinies,…) is wide-reaching, from astronomical infinity « ténèbres solaires » solar darkness) to the microscopic (« Mutation végétale” Plant mutation) : a profuse and varied production, regularly exhibited at his home, in various public and private exhibition spaces and, most significantly, at the Salon Comparaison of which he was the curator for the Tapestry section. Origin : the artist’s workshop -
Ichtyonis
Tapestry woven in the Raymond workshop. Complete with certificate of origin signed by the artist, n°EA1. Circa 1980. Originally an engraver (Prix de Rome, intaglio technique in 1942), Jean-Louis Viard designed his first tapestry cartoons in the mid 1950’s. At first his work was figurative (he was collaborating at the time with Picart Le Doux), but then he evolved along the same lines as many other painter-cartoonists of the period (Matégot, Tourlière or Prassinos,...) towards abstraction. He produced scores of cartoons working up until the 2000’s, in parallel to his work as a painter and engraver, but throughout revealing a particular interest for the use of contrasting materials and textures in the tradition of the “Nouvelle Tapisserie” of which Pierre Daquin was one of the leading lights. The inspiration for his motifs, sometimes metaphysical (“Mémoires” Memories, “Destins” Destinies,…) is wide-reaching, from astronomical infinity « ténèbres solaires » solar darkness) to the microscopic (« Mutation végétale” Plant mutation) : a profuse and varied production, regularly exhibited at his home, in various public and private exhibition spaces and, most significantly, at the Salon Comparaison of which he was the curator for the Tapestry section. Origin : the artist’s workshop -
La huppe blanche (the white crest)
Aubusson tapestry woven in the Hamot workshop. Complete with certificate of origin signed by the artist. 1961. J Jean Picart le Doux is one of the foremost figures in the renaissance of the art of tapestry. His earliest contributions to the field date back to 1943 when he designed cartoons for the passenger ship “la Marseillaise”. A close associate of Lurçat, whose theories he would adopt (limited palette, numbered cartoons...), he was a founding member of the A.P.C.T. (Association des Peintres-cartonniers de Tapisserie), and soon after, a teacher at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs. The state gave him several commissions most of them at the Aubusson workshop, and some at the Gobelins : the most spectacular of these being for the University of Caen, the Theatre in Le Mans, the passenger ship France or the Prefecture of the Creuse département ... In as much as Picart le Doux’s aesthetic is close to that of Lurçat, so also is his insipiration and his subject matter, although in a register which is more decorative than symbolic, where he brings together heavenly bodies (the sun, the moon, the stars...), the elements, nature (wheat, vines, fish, birds...), man, literary quotation ... This cartoon is a variation on n° 97 in Bruzeau’s book : it is one of a series taking the exotic as their subject (South America would influence numerous cartoons by Lurçat), starting with “Orénoque” (one copy is conserved in Angers at the Musée JeanLurçat et de la Tapisserie Contemporaine) in 1956, and of which the cartoons of 1961-62 constitute so many variations : the same plant motifs (ferns and philodendrons,...) the same birds,.... here, however, as with “Amazonie’, the background is white. Bibliography : Maurice Bruzeau, Jean Picart le Doux, Murs de soleil, Editions Cercle d’art, 1972 Exhibition catalogue Jean Picart le Doux, Musée de la Poste, 1980 -
Les comédiens (The actors)
Aubusson tapestry woven in the Legoueix workshop. N°4/6. 1959. Lurçat approached Saint-Saëns, originally a painter of murals, in 1940. And during the war the latter produced the first of his allegorical masterpieces, tapestries reflecting indignation, combat, resistance : “les Vierges folles (the foolish virgins), “Thésée et le Minotaure” (Theseus and the Minotaur). At the end of the war, as a natural development he joined up with Lurçat, whose convictions he shared (concerning a simplified palette, outlined cartoons with colours indicated by pre-ordained numbers, and the specific nature of tapestry design...) at the A.P.C.T. (Association des Peintres-cartonniers de Tapisserie). His universe, where the human figure, stretched, elongated, ooccupies an important place (particularly when compared to his companions Lurçat or Picart le Doux), pivots around traditional themes : woman, the Commedia dell’arte, Greek mythology... refined by the brilliance of the colours and the simplification of the layout. His work would evolve later, in the 1960’s, towards cartoons of a more lyrical design, almost abstract where elemental and cosmic forces would dominate. Themes of music, drama and more specifically the Commedia dell’Arte (« la Comédie Italienne », a cartoon dating from 1947) are omnipresent in Saint-Saëns’s production : here he presents the figures of Lelio and Isabelle, strikingly drawn, slightly humorous figures, presented here in their traditional costumes. Bibliography : Exhibition catalogue Saint-Saëns, galerie La Demeure, 1970 Exhibition catalogue Saint-Saëns, the tapestries, Aubusson, Musée départemental de la Tapisserie, 1987 Exhibition catalogue Marc Saint-Saëns, tapestries, 1935-1979, Angers, Musée Jean Lurçat et de la Tapisserie Contemporaine 1997-1998 -
La harpe des mers (Harp of the ocean)
Tapestry woven in the Berthaut workshop. Complete with certificate of origin signed by the artist. 1954. Jean Picart le Doux is one of the foremost figures in the renaissance of the art of tapestry. His earliest contributions to the field date back to 1943 when he designed cartoons for the passenger ship “la Marseillaise”. A close associate of Lurçat, whose theories he would adopt (limited palette, numbered cartoons...), he was a founding member of the A.P.C.T. (Association des Peintres-cartonniers de Tapisserie), and soon after, a teacher at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs. The state gave him several commissions most of them at the Aubusson workshop, and some at the Gobelins : the most spectacular of these being for the University of Caen, the Theatre in Le Mans, the passenger ship France or the Prefecture of the Creuse département ... In as much as Picart le Doux’s aesthetic is close to that of Lurçat, so also is his insipiration and his subject matter, although in a register which is more decorative than symbolic, where he brings together heavenly bodies (the sun, the moon, the stars...), the elements, nature (wheat, vines, fish, birds...), man, literary quotation ... « La harpe des mers » (Harp of the ocean) (Bruzeau n° 60) just as its companion piece « La harpe des forêts” (Harp of the forest), identical in size, is one of a set of cartoons by Picart le Doux dealing with the theme of the lyre and the harp : the geometrical rigour and graphic power of the parallel strings were a particular inspiration to the artist. Here, music and nature are closely associated (cf “l’arbre-lyre” the tree lyre from 1953) and Orphée Orpheus (a cartoon from 1952) is the single figure which encapsulates this assimilation. Bibliography : Maurice Bruzeau, Jean Picart le Doux, Murs de soleil, Editions Cercle d’art, 1972 Exhibition catalogue Jean Picart le Doux, Musée de la Poste, 1980 -
Nature morte (still life)
Gobelins tapestry woven by G. Bonnevialle. Complete with label. 1930-1931 (after a 1921 painting). An establishment artist of classical training, Migonney spent many long years in Algeria, which would furnish the subject of much of his work. He gave several cartoons to the Ecole Nationale d’Art Décoratif in Aubusson (along with Véra, Valtat...), whose exhibition stand at the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs in 1925 included a panel bearing one of his tapestries. This piece is a detail, woven after the artist’s death, taken from a spectacular work (137x205cm) dating from 1921 which hangs in the Musée de Brou in Bourg en Bresse, “Still life with fruit”. It reveals all the weaving detail and nuances which constituted the art of the Gobelin weavers when reproducing a painting, techniques whose use Lurcat would soon make a point of opposing. Bibliography : Exhibition Cat. Tapisseries 1925, Aubusson, Cité de la Tapisserie, 2012 -
Rambouillet
Aubusson tapestry woven in the Pinton workshop. Complete with certificate of origin signed by the artist, n° 1 of 6. Circa 1970. Perrot began his career as a cartoon designer at the end of the war, making almost 500 cartoons including numerous commissions from the state, most of which were woven at Aubusson. His style which is particularly rich and decorative is eminently recognisable : a crowd of butterflies or birds, most often, stands out against a background of vegetation, reminiscent of the millefleurs tapestries (which would also inspire Dom Robert). René Perrot is essentially an animal artist who habitually uses stylisation. His decorative style is counterweighted here by the extreme realism with which the stag is represented, rare in post-war tapestry. The title of the cartoon is a throw-back to the grand French hunting tradition which he abundantly illustrated, for example in “Sologne”, which was donated to the Musée de la Chasse in Gien by the Mobilier National. -
Les Dauphins (Dolphins)
Aubusson tapestry woven in the Picaud workshop. Complete with certificate of origin signed by the artist, n° 6 of 8. 1959. Jean Picart le Doux is one of the foremost figures in the renaissance of the art of tapestry. His earliest contributions to the field date back to 1943 when he designed cartoons for the passenger ship “la Marseillaise”. A close associate of Lurçat, whose theories he would adopt (limited palette, numbered cartoons...), he was a founding member of the A.P.C.T. (Association des Peintres-cartonniers de Tapisserie), and soon after, a teacher at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs. The state gave him several commissions most of them at the Aubusson workshop, and some at the Gobelins : the most spectacular of these being for the University of Caen, the Theatre in Le Mans, the passenger ship France or the Prefecture of the Creuse département ... In as much as Picart le Doux’s aesthetic is close to that of Lurçat, so also is his insipiration and his subject matter, although in a register which is more decorative than symbolic, where he brings together heavenly bodies (the sun, the moon, the stars...), the elements, nature (wheat, vines, fish, birds...), man, literary quotation ... Reproduced as n° 95 in Bruzeau, the latter comments : « Perfect symbolism of a theme already treat ed ». It is true that, from the very beginning, Picart le Doux made recurrent use of the theme of the sea, and particularly with “le Dauphin” (the Dolphin) in 1951 (Bruzeau n° 27). This cartoon, though rather more stylised, is typical of the symetry favoured by the artist and is executed in a colour scheme redolent of the sea bed. Bibliography : Maurice Bruzeau, Jean Picart le Doux, Murs de soleil, Editions Cercle d’art, 1972 -
Composition
Aubusson tapestry woven by the Tabard workshop. Complete with certificate of origin, worn , signed by the artist. 1964 or 1965. From early on in his career, Mortensen, favoured an abstract painting style. He settled in Paris in 1947 and showed his works, with other artists also inclined to geometric abstraction, at the Denise René gallery. In 1952 under the aegis of François Tabard and Vasarely an exhibition titled « 12 original tapestries » opened at the gallery where, in the company of Le Corbusier and Léger, there appeared works by Deyrolle, Taueber-Arp and Mortensen who thus became the first abstract painters to be reproduced in tapestry and a new art form was born (in this context, it must not be forgotten that this is the period where the “Lurçat style” was absolutely dominant) which Gilioli, Matégot and Tourlière will all subsequently claim as their own. Mortensen’s collaboration with the “René-Tabard tapestries” will last until 1968, even though he returned to his native Denmark in 1964. The 14 works of the artist which will be woven are characterised by his large-scale geometrical compositions, using bright, light and contrasting colours in large expanses of colour, which the weavers of the Tabard workshop reproduce with great success. . This tapestry is one of the 3 tapestries woven by the Tabard workshop in 1964-1965 to have no title (cf. Catalogue of the tapestries woven by the Tabard workshop), each of the 3 is a one-off piece. Bibliography : Exhibition catalogue, Aubusson, la voie abstraite, Aubusson, Musée départmental de la Tapisserie, 1993 -
La cage ouverte (the open cage)
Tapisserie d’Aubusson tissée par l’atelier Berthaut. Avec son bolduc signé de l'artiste. 1953. Jean Picart le Doux is one of the foremost figures in the renaissance of the art of tapestry. His earliest contributions to the field date back to 1943 when he designed cartoons for the passenger ship “la Marseillaise”. A close associate of Lurçat, whose theories he would adopt (limited palette, numbered cartoons...), he was a founding member of the A.P.C.T. (Association des Peintres-cartonniers de Tapisserie), and soon after, a teacher at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs. The state gave him several commissions most of them at the Aubusson workshop, and some at the Gobelins : the most spectacular of these being for the University of Caen, the Theatre in Le Mans, the passenger ship France or the Prefecture of the Creuse département ... In as much as Picart le Doux’s aesthetic is close to that of Lurçat, so also is his insipiration and his subject matter, although in a register which is more decorative than symbolic, where he brings together heavenly bodies (the sun, the moon, the stars...), the elements, nature (wheat, vines, fish, birds...), man, literary quotation ... Birds are a recurrent motif in the artist’s work in the first half of the 1950’s (“la cage ouverte” the open cage, one of the most successful works of this artist, dates from 1953, Picart le Doux here comes back to the same cartoon but with a few minimal changes), as well as the tongues of flame punctuating the edges of the cage. Added to this is the limited colour scheme which is not a little redolent of traditional foliage. Bibliography : Maurice Bruzeau, Jean Picart le Doux, Murs de soleil, Editions Cercle d’art, 1972 Exhibition catalogue Jean Picart le Doux, Musée de la Poste, 1980 -
A tous vents (Windblown)
Aubusson tapestry woven in the Tabard workshop. Complete with certificate of origin. 1962-1963. 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. Spectacular cartoon (27 m2 !) and an exceptional private commission for a specific place (the hall of the patron’s home) that Lurçat received towards the end of his life where he brings together a busy profusion of his signature motifs : sun, stars, butterflies, but also and more rarely, tortoise, cat, .. The correspondance exchanged between Lurçat and his patron reveals his great accessability (at a time when Lurçat, at the height of his fame, is constantly in demand and spends much of his time on the “Chant du Monde”) and the depth of his well-argued reflection in response to the commission : the self-proclaimed “doctor of wools” chooses a yellow background (favoured over black “too solemn for the hall in the home of a young couple”), “the wall covered from end to end ...” “a royal solution” “according to the tradition of great tapestry-making”,... As can be seen, the patron saw no reason to quibble with any of these artistic choices. Origin : Private collection, Lyon (a copy of the correspondance between Lurçat, the Tabard workshop and the patron will be given to the purchaser) Bibliography : Exhibition catalogue Jean Lurçat, Tapisseries nouvelles, Maison de la pensée Française, 1956 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 Exhibition Catalogue L'homme et ses lumières, Angers, Musée Jean Lurçat et de la tapisserie contemporaine, 1992 Symposium Jean Lurçat et la renaissance de la tapisserie in Aubusson, Aubusson, Musée départemental de la tapisserie 1992 Exhibition catalogue Jean Lurçat, Donation Simone Lurçat, Académie des Beaux-Arts, 2004 Jean Lurçat, le chant du monde Angers 2007 Gérard Denizeau, Jean Lurçat, Liénart, 2013 -
Papillons (Butterflies)
Aubusson tapestry woven by the Pinton frères workshop. With original certificate Lurçat’s artistic production was immense : it is however his role as the renovator of the art of tapestry design which ensured 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, drawn and numbered cartons. A huge production then follows (over 1000 cartons) amplified by his desire to include his painter friends, the creation of the A.P.C.T. (Association des Peintres-Cartonniers de Tapiisserie) and the collaboration with the art gallery La Demeure and Denise Majorel, and then by his assumed role promotion the medium around the world (le Monde ?) His tapestries reveal a pictorial world which is specifically decorative, with a very personal symbolic iconography, cosmogonical (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. His journey to Brazil in 1954 was a decisive source of inspiration for Lurçat : the flora and fauna (particularly the butterflies, a recurrent theme) of the Amazon appear repeatedly : “What interests me with the butterfly, ... is the extraordinary inventiveness of the interlacing forms, the sparkling colours, the total freedom of their coloration...” (Claude Faux, Lurçat à haute voix, 1962, p. 151). Butterflies on a yellow background are a motif which recurs in several cartons : “Paon de nuit”, “Copacabana”, “Papillons Marcenac”... Bibliography : Exhibition Cat. Jean Lurçat, Tapisseries nouvelles, Maison de la pensée Française, 1956 Exhibition Cat.. Les domaines de Jean Lurçat, Angers, Musée Jean Lurçat et de la tapisserie contemporaine, 1986 Symposium Jean Lurçat et la renaissance de la tapisserie à Aubusson, Aubusson, Musée départemental de la Tapisserie, 1992 Exhibition Cat. Jean Lurçat, Donation Simone Lurçat, Académie des Beaux-Arts, 2004 Jean Lurçat, le chant du Monde, Angers, 2007 -
Concert champêtre (Outdoor concert)
Aubusson tapestry woven in the Picaud workshop for the Verriere Gallery of Lyons. Complete with its certificate signed by the artist ; n° 1 of 4. Circa 1970 « It is thus easy to understand that, having based my painting on my love of tapestry, it was relatively easy for me, and particularly tempting, to produce tapestries which were faithful to my painting” writes the artist in the exhibition catalogue for the 1970 show at the Galerie Verrière. It is not until 1961 that he started making designs (over 50) both for woven tapestries (at Aubusson, but also for the Mobilier National with, on occasion, the collaboration of Pierre Baudoin), but also those employing needlepoint. The artist’s very audacious palette is immediately recognisable in these cartons, with their use of primary colours or, as here, revolving around a very vivid pink with a rather dislocated storyline between the concert in the foreground and the hunting scene in the distance. Bibliography : Exhibition catalogue, Expo Lapicque, Lyons, Galerie Verrière 1970 -
Saint François parlant aux animaux (St Francis talking to the animals)
Aubusson tapestry woven in the Perathon workshop. Circa 1940. Jean Bazaine, like many of his contemporaries, was a prolific mural artist particularly for large scale edifices. Although he is above all recognised as a designer of stained glass windows and mosaics, he was also making tapestry cartoons as early as the 1930’s. These pieces formed part of the renewal of religious art of which Bazaine would be one of the principal protagonists, particularly after the war. Jean Bazaine, in association with l’abbé Morel (one of those foremost in promoting the introduction of abstract art into churches), was at the head of a painters’ workshop from 1936 to 1937 hence, undoubtedly, the preoccupations which he had already voiced in the domain of religious art. This particular cartoon, figurative in character, (Bazaine would abandon figurative representation during the war period) employing traditional iconography, is thus a modest example of the artist’s first steps in both mural and religious art.
