Aubusson tapestry woven by the Simone André workshop.
With its ribbon signed by the artist.
Circa 1955.
Lurçat's body of work is immense, but it is his role in the revival of the art of tapestry that has ensured his place in history. He began working with canvas in 1917, then collaborated with Marie Cuttoli in the 1920s and 1930s. His first collaboration with Les Gobelins dates back to 1937, when he discovered the Apocalypse tapestry in Angers, which inspired him to devote himself entirely to tapestry. He first tackled technical issues with François Tabard, then, when he moved to Aubusson during the war, he defined his own system: large stitches, measured tones, numbered cartoons. A huge production then began (more than 1,000 cartoons), amplified by his desire to involve his painter friends, the creation of the A.P.C.T. (Association des Peintres-Cartonniers de Tapisserie) and his collaboration with the La Demeure gallery and Denise Majorel, then by his role as a tireless promoter of the medium throughout the world.
His woven work bears witness to a specifically decorative art of imagery, in a highly personal, cosmogonic symbolic iconography (sun, planets, zodiac, four elements, etc.), stylized plants, animals (goats, roosters, butterflies, chimeras, etc.), stand out against a background without perspective (deliberately distanced from painting), and intended, in his most ambitious cartoons, to share a vision that is both poetic (he sometimes embellishes these tapestries with quotations) and philosophical (the major themes were addressed as early as the war: freedom, resistance, fraternity, truth, etc.) and whose culmination was to be the "Chant du Monde" (Jean Lurçat Museum, former Saint-Jean Hospital, Angers), unfinished at the time of his death.
His trip to Brazil in 1954 was a decisive source of inspiration for Lurçat: Amazonian flora and fauna (particularly butterflies, a recurring theme) appear frequently in his work: "What interests me about butterflies... is the extraordinary invention of their intertwining shapes, their sparkling colors, the gratuitousness of their coloring..." (Claude Faux, Lurçat à haute voix, 1962, p.151). This geographical source would undergo several transformations: "Vera Cruz," of course, but also "New Delhi"... would serve as inspiration for butterflies.
Bibliography:
Tapisseries de Jean Lurçat 1939-1957, Pierre Vorms Editeur, 1957
Cat.Expo. Jean Lurçat, Nice, Musée des Ponchettes, 1968
Cat. Expo. Lurçat, 10 ans après, Musée d’Art moderne de la ville de Paris, 1976
Cat. Expo. Les domaines de Jean Lurçat, Angers, Musée Jean Lurçat et de la tapisserie contemporaine, 1986
Colloquium Jean Lurçat et la renaissance de la tapisserie à Aubusson, Aubusson, Musée départemental de la Tapisserie, 1992
Exhibition catalog Dialogues avec Lurçat, Musées de Basse-Normandie, 1992
Exhibition catalog Jean Lurçat, Donation Simone Lurçat, Academy of Fine Arts, 2004
Gérard Denizeau, Denise Majorel, a life devoted to tapestry, Aubusson, Departmental Museum of Tapestry
Gérard Denizeau, Jean Lurçat, Liénart, 2013
Exhibition catalog Jean Lurçat, Meister der französischen Moderne, Halle, Kunsthalle, 2016
Exhibition catalog. Jean Lurçat au seul bruit du soleil, Paris, Galerie des Gobelins, 2016
Exhibition catalog. Jean Lurçat, la terre, le feu, l’eau, l’air, Perpignan, Musée d’art Hyacinthe Rigaud, 2024
