Jean Lurçat

The œuvre by Lurçat was immense: however, it was his role in the renovation of the art of tapestry that earned him lasting renown. As early as 1917, he began with canvas works, and then, in the 1920s and 1930s, he worked with Marie Cuttoli. His first collaboration with the Gobelins dates from 1937, when he also discovered, at the same time, the Apocalypse tapestry set from Angers, which definitively prompted him to devote himself to tapestry. He addressed technical questions first with François Tabard, and then, during his installation in Aubusson during the war, he defined his system: gros point, counted tones, drawn cartoons, Numbered. A vast production then began (more than 1,000 cartoons), amplified by his determination to involve his painter friends, the creation of the A.P.C.T. (Association des Peintres-Cartonniers de Tapisserie), and his collaboration with the gallery La Demeure and Denise Majorel, and finally through his tireless role as a propagator of the medium throughout the world. His woven work bears witness to an art of the imagery-maker that is specifically decorative: in a highly personal, symbolical iconography—cosmogonic (sun, planets, zodiac, the 4 elements…), stylized vegetal, and animal motifs (goats, roosters, butterflies, chimeras…)—they stand out against a background without perspective (deliberately kept away from painting). In his most ambitious cartoons, the goal was to share a vision that was both poetic (he also sometimes embellishes these tapestries with quotations) and philosophical (the major themes were addressed from the war onward: freedom, resistance, fraternity, truth…). The culminating point of this work would be the “Chant du Monde” (Musée Jean Lurçat, former Hôtel Saint-Jean, Angers), left unfinished at his death. If the title refers to a season, it is more an evocation of exoticism that Lurçat invites us to encounter: the journey to South America in the mid-1950s inspired numerous cartoons populated with hummingbirds, butterflies, and exuberant vegetation. Bibliography : Tapisseries de Jean Lurçat 1939-1957, Pierre Vorms Editeur, 1957 Cat. Expo. Lurçat, 10 ans après, Musée d’Art moderne of the City of 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 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 Cat. Expo. Jean Lurçat, Meister der französischen Moderne, Halle, Kunsthalle, 2016 Cat. Expo. Jean Lurçat au seul bruit du soleil, Paris, galerie des Gobelins, 2016