Chant d'oiseaux (birdsong)
Aubusson tapestry woven in the Pinton workshop.
With signed label, n°1/6.
Circa 1970.
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Odette Caly, considered a specialist in floral arrangements, designed numerous cartoons for Aubusson, woven in the Pinton, Henry or Hamot workshops. The plant decor here is enlivened by birds, in a style that Henri Ilhe would not have denied. Bibliography : Caly, Publications filmées d’art et d’histoire, 1972
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Les eaux dormantes (sleeping waters)
Aubusson tapestry woven by the Pinton workshop. With signed label, n°2/6. Circa 1970. -
Le hibou (the owl)
Aubusson tapestry woven by the Avignon workshop. With label signed by the artist's beneficiary. 1959. -
Paysage (landscape)
Aubusson tapestry woven by the Legoueix workshop. N°4/6. Circa 1970. -
Faisan (phaesant)
Perrot began his career as a cartoon designer at the end of the war, making almost 500 cartoons including numerous commissions from the state, most of which were woven at Aubusson. His style which is particularly rich and decorative is eminently recognisable : a crowd of butterflies or birds, most often, stands out against a background of vegetation, reminiscent of the millefleurs tapestries (which would also inspire Dom Robert). The ornithological subject, the abundance of motifs inspired by medieval « mille-fleurs » tapestries and the plain background (in this case, using the famous ‘Perrot blue’ as it was known in the Pinton workshops, repeatedly used in numerous cartoons) make our tapestry an exemplary model of Perrot's art from the 1960s onwards. Bibliography : Tapisseries, dessins, peintures, gravures de René Perrot, Dessein et Tolra, 1982 Cat. Expo. René Perrot, mon pauvre cœur est un hibou, Aubusson, Cité de la Tapisserie, 2023Aubusson tapestry woven by the Pinton workshop. With signed label. Circa 1960. -
Conte d'hiver (the winter's tale)
Aubusson tapestry woven in the Goubely workshop. With label, n°2/4. 1963. I became interested in the art of tapestry particularly because I was excited by the numbered cartoon technique consisting of the fabrication of a mental coloured image using a code…. Tapestry is an essential exercise. As I practised it, it is perhaps the desire to interrogate, down to the finest detail, a work which exists in two dimensions.” (quoted in the exhibition catalogue, Prassinos, rétrospective de l’oeuvre peint et dessiné, Puyricard, 1983). So much for the artist’s manifesto. Prassinos designed his first cartoons in 1951 (most of which, around 150, would be woven in the Goubely workshop); then he joined the A.P.C.T. (Association des Peintres-Cartonniers de Tapisserie). After several cartoons taking birds as their theme, Prassinos, like several other artists, despite being close to Lurçat, (Matégot, Wogensky…) turned resolutely towards abstraction, in a very personal style where sinuous shapes entwine in contrasting colours (often following a scheme of black-red-brown-beige). Bibliography : Exhibition catalogue Mario Prassinos, tapisseries monumentales, Abbaye de Montmajour, Arles, 1974 Mario Prassinos, œuvre tissé, La Demeure, 1974, n°53 Exhibition catalogue Mario Prassinos, Tapisseries , Aubusson, Musée départemental de le Tapisserie, 1984, ill. p.23 Exhibition catalogue Prassinos, Tapisseries, Angers, Musée Jean Lurçat et de la Tapisserie Contemporaine, 1988 -
Fleurs (flowers)
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.Tapestry woven by the CRECIT. With label. 1999. -
Oiseaux et feuillages (birds and leaves)
Aubusson tapestry woven in the Tabard workshop. With certificate of origin signed by the artist. 1963. -
L'écarlate de jour (the day scarlet)
Lurçat’s artistic production was immense : it is however his role as the renovator of the art of tapestry design which ensures his lasting renown. As early as 1917, he started producing works on canvas, then in the 20’s and 30’s, he worked with Marie Cuttoli. His first collaboration with the Gobelins workshop dates back to 1937, at the same time he discovered the tapestry of the Apocalypse which was essential in his decision to devote himself to tapestry design. He first tackled the Gobelins, 2016technical aspects with François Tabard, then on his installation at Aubusson during the war, he established his technique : broad point, a simplified palette, outlined cartoons with colours indicated by pre-ordained numbers. A huge production then follows (over 1000 cartoons) amplified by his desire to include his painter friends, the creation of the A.P.C.T. (Association des Peintres-Cartonniers de Tapisserie) and the collaboration with the art gallery La Demeure and Denise Majorel, and then by his role as a tireless advocate for the medium around the world. His tapestries reveal a pictorial world which is specifically decorative, with a very personal symbolic iconography : cosmogony (the sun, the planets, the zodiac, the four elements…) stylised vegetation, fauna (rams, cocks, butterflies, chimera …) standing out against a background without perspective (voluntarily different from painting) and, in his more ambitious work, designed as an invitation to share in a poetic (he sometimes weaves quotations into his tapestries) and philosophical (the grand themes are broached from the wartime period onwards) vision whose climax is the “Chant du Monde” (Song of the World) (Jean Lurçat Museum , ancien hôpital Saint Jean, Angers) which remained unfinished at his death. If there is one motif that is omnipresent in Lurçat’s work over the years it is that of the cockerel, in an infinite variety of interpretations. Our model (this one a true scarlet) is an echo, larger and inverted, of ‘Blue Scarlet’ from 1953. Bibliography : Tapisseries de Jean Lurçat 1939-1957, Pierre Vorms Editeur, 1957 Claude Roy, Jean Lurçat, Pierre Cailler 1966, ill.n°100 Exhibition Catalogue Jean Lurçat, Nice, Musée des Ponchettes, 1968 Exhibition Catalogue Lurçat, 10 ans après, Musée d’Art moderne de la ville de Paris, 1976 Exhibition catalogue Les domaines de Jean Lurçat, Angers, Musée Jean Lurçat et de la tapisserie contemporaine, 1986 Symposium Jean Lurçat et la renaissance de la tapisserie in Aubusson, Aubusson, Musée départemental de la tapisserie 1992 Exhibition Catalogue Dialogues avec Lurçat, Musées de Basse-Normandie, 1992 Exhibition catalogue Jean Lurçat, Donation Simone Lurçat, Académie des Beaux-Arts, 2004 Jean Lurçat, le chant du monde Angers 2007 Gérard Denizeau, Denise Majorel, une vie pour la tapisserie, Aubusson, Musée départemental de la tapisserie Gérard Denizeau, Jean Lurçat, Liénart, 2013 Exhibition Catalogue Jean Lurçat, Meister der französischen Moderne, Halle, Kunsthalle Exhibition Catalogue Jean Lurçat au seul bruit du soleil, Paris, galerie des Gobelins, 2016 Exhibition Catalogue Jean Lurçat, la terre, le feu, l’eau, l’air, Perpignan, Musée d’art Hyacinthe Rigaud, 2024Aubusson tapestry woven in the Goubely workshop. With label. 1953. -
Les 3 papillons (the 3 butterflies)
Aubusson tapestry woven by the Picaud workshop. With label signed by the artist's widow, n°1/6. Circa 1980. 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 inspiration 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 … While butterflies are a favourite theme with Lurçat, they are less common with Picart le Doux. Even here, and despite the title, their presence is marginal : the cartoon actually repeats, in a minor mode, ‘Lumière’ (Light), from 1960. 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 de Saint-Denis, 1976 Exhibition Catalogue Jean Picart le Doux, Musée de la Poste, 1980
