Linda
Aubusson tapestry woven by the Four workshop.
With label, n°EA2.
Circa 1980.
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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 : the theme of motherhood, whether exotic or not, remains a recurring motif in Toffoli's work, regardless of the technique used. This tapestry is reproduced in the publication « Tapisserie d’Aubusson » produced by the Guéret Chamber of Commerce and Industry at the beginning of the 1980’s to illustrate the technical prowess of the Aubusson tapestry workshops.
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Henri, détail de "carton 28" (detail from carton 28)
In the 1980s, Aubusson tapestry was in decline. The public authorities then drew up a plan to revive tapestry, and Daniel Riberzani was one of the beneficiaries, becoming the first recipient of a grant from the Centre National des Arts Plastiques for tapestry. In Aubusson, at the ENAD, he discovered the medium, initially adopting numbered cartoons and forging links in the workshops. He then received public commissions for the Gobelins and the Espace Carpeaux in Courbevoie (‘Music and Dance’, a 160 m² tapestry!), among others. Thematic series, in line with his pictorial work, followed one after another: ‘landscapes-events’, ‘intimate paintings’, “writings”, ‘painted cartoons’, etc. The latter, collaged and painted papers from 1993-1994, were designed for possible translation into textiles (tapestries or carpets, depending on the case). ‘Cardboard 28’, from 1993, consists of colourful pinned words, like a border on a neutral grey background in the centre, and although there was no ‘Carpet or Tapestry 28’, the artist had details woven, where « Henri » rubs shoulders with fragmentary “eruption” and ‘sulphur’: a tapestry of margins. Bibliographie : Cat. Expo. Histoire d’une tapisserie ou la rencontre du cannibale et des carnassiers, Aubusson, Musée départemental de la Tapisserie, 1984 Cat. Expo. Tapisseries – Cartons peints, Riberzani avec Bezard, Brandon, Four, Gachon, Scioria, Avallon, Collégiale Saint-Lazare, 1995 Gérard Denizeau, Riberzani peintures intimes 1989-1999, Inard Editions, 1999, ill. n°3, p.159 Daniel Riberzani Œuvres, 2014Aubusson tapestry woven in the Legoueix workshop. With signed label, n°1/6. 1993-1996. -
Jardin champêtre (country garden)
A painter of weaving cartoons, a master-weaver, director of the Hamot manufacture at Aubusson where he wove most notably Sheila Hicks : the multiple talents of Hecquet are undeniable. That of painter-cartonnier which began at the end of the 1960’s, remains however one of the less well-known, as is the case for numerous other artists of the same generation.Aubusson tapestry woven in the Hamot workshop. With signed label, n°3/6. 1980. -
Visage (face)
Chazaud, originally from the Creuse department of France, revealed in his tapestries the extent of his affection for the natural world in which he grew up and which he, like Gaston Thiéry (and Maingonnat before them) largely drew on for inspiration. The female form is, however, another thematic inspiration for Chazaud; with his flower-women, his leaf-women, he reintroduces the human face and profile to the art of tapestry.Tapestry probably woven in the Picaud workshop in Aubusson. Circa 1980. -
Jour d'été (summer day)
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 the cartoon, with its elongated format in keeping with the bird’s height, represented here in a very realistic fashion, is characteristic of the afore-mentioned predilection. Bibliography : Exhibition catalogue Dubrunfaut et la renaissance de la tapisserie, tableaux, dessins, peintures, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Mons, 1982-1983.Aubusson tapestry woven by the Four workshop, edited by Jean Laurent. With label, n°EA. 1989. -
Silenciaire (silencer)
A pupil of Wogensky at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Appliqués, Sautour-Gaillard had his first cartoon woven in 1971 by the Legoueix workshop (a collaboration which was to last), and from then on he designed many very large-scale projects of which the most spectacular was “Pour un certain idéal” a series of 17 tapestries dealing with the theme of Olympianism (property of the Musée de l’Olympisme in Lausanne). If at first close to lyrical abstraction, the artist produced in the 1990’s cartoons superimposing different decorative motifs, textures and figures whose unity originated in the woven texture itself. Throughout his career, Sautour-Gaillard had small scale works woven which he called “tapisseries-objets” (tapestry artefacts). If it is true that they faithfully follow the artist’s successive styles, they can be distinguished (apart obvously from their small size) by the fact that the warp is attached to a wooden frame which makes them rigid ; though small these tapestries are intendended to be displayed on walls. Bibliography : D. Cavelier, Jean-René Sautour-Gaillard, la déchirure, Lelivredart, 2013, ill. p.166Aubusson tapestry woven in the Legoueix workshop. With signed label, n°1/1. 1978.
