Poissons-voile (Fish-sail)
Aubusson tapestry woven by the Pinton workshop
Complete with certificate of origin signed by the artist, n°5/6.
1969.
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
