Fleurs (flowers)
Tapestry woven by the CRECIT.
With label.
1999.
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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). A late tapestry by Dubrunfaut, in an ever-renewed decorative vein, woven at the CRECIT in Tournai, where the artist gave many cartoons . Bibliography : Exhibition catalogue Dubrunfaut et la renaissance de la tapisserie, tableaux, dessins, peintures, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Mons, 1982-1983.
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Saint-Mars (composition blues black yellow red white)
From early on in his career, Mortensen, favoured an abstract painting style. He settled in Paris in 1947 and showed his works, with other artists also inclined to geometric abstraction, at the Denise René gallery. In 1952 under the aegis of François Tabard and Vasarely an exhibition titled « 12 original tapestries » opened at the gallery where, in the company of Le Corbusier and Léger, there appeared works by Deyrolle, Taueber-Arp and Mortensen who thus became the first abstract painters to be reproduced in tapestry and a new art form was born (in this context, it must not be forgotten that this is the period where the “Lurçat style” was absolutely dominant) which Gilioli, Matégot and Tourlière will all subsequently claim as their own. Mortensen’s collaboration with the “René-Tabard tapestries” will last until 1968, even though he returned to his native Denmark in 1964. The 14 works of the artist which will be woven are characterised by his large-scale geometrical compositions, using bright, light and contrasting colours in large expanses of colour, which the weavers of the Tabard workshop reproduce with great success. « One of the loveliest » of Mortensen’s tapestries according to Valentine Fougère (Tapisseries de notre temps, Paris 1969), « Saint Mars », a somewhat obscure title, derives directly from an engraving from 1962. The style which is wholly geometric, consisting of blocks of primary colour and surrounded by a frame, is characteristic of this artist’s style in the years 1961-2. This model, which was to be found both at the Mobilier National (bought from the Denise René gallery in 1963) and also at the Cité de la Tapisserie in Aubusson, was woven in 2 sizes : the dimensions of this copy correspond to that mentioned in the Cité. Origin : Denise René collection Bibliography : Madeleine Jarry, la Tapisserie, art du XXe siècle, Fribourg, 1974, ill. n°145 Exhibition catalogue, Aubusson, la voie abstraite, Aubusson, Musée départemental de la Tapisserie, 1993, ill. p.14 (on a photograph of a 1964 exhibition at the Denise René gallery) p.32 Acts of the colloquium, la tapisserie hier et aujourd’hui, Paris, 2011, ill. n°6 p.213 Visitor’s guide, nef des tentures, Cité internationale de la Tapisserie, Aubusson, 2016, ill. p.84Aubusson tapestry woven in the Tabard workshop.. With label. 1963. -
Joyau (gem)
Tapestry woven by the Braquenié workshop. With label, n°1. Circa 1975.A rare example of this artist’s work for the loom : in it we find his characteristically complicated formal arrangements.
