233 cm

    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 which culminated in the "Chant du Monde" (Jean Lurçat Museum, former Saint-Jean Hospital, Angers), unfinished at the time of his death.   The subjugation of motifs to compartmentalization is a recurring theme in Lurçat's work (think of his "cabinets"); nevertheless, nature and flowers cannot be constrained and tend to escape the frame. The composition is a reproduction of the right-hand side of "Nouveau jardin Marcenac," a 1955 cartoon.     Bibliography: Tapisseries de Jean Lurçat 1939-1957, Pierre Vorms Editeur, 1957 Exhibition catalog: Jean Lurçat, Nice, Musée des Ponchettes, 1968 Exhibition catalog: 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. Colloque Jean Lurçat et la renaissance de la tapisserie à Aubusson, Aubusson, Musée départemental de la Tapisserie, 1992. Exhibition catalog. Dialogues avec Lurçat, Museums of Lower Normandy, 1992 Exhibition catalog. Jean Lurçat, Donation Simone Lurçat, Academy of Fine Arts, 2004 Gérard Denizeau, Denise Majorel, une vie pour la tapisserie, 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