Double amitié (double friendship)
Aubusson tapestry woven in the Four workshop.
With signed label, n°EA1.
1972.
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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 classic subject, but the title refers to an anthropomorphisation of relations between animals, expressing the artist's social (utopian ?) concerns. Bibliography : Exhibition catalogue Dubrunfaut et la renaissance de la tapisserie, tableaux, dessins, peintures, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Mons, 1982-1983, n°239.
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Escorte (escort)
Marc Petit met Jean Lurçat in 1954, went to Aubusson in 1955, exhibited his work for the first time at La Demeure in 1956, became a member of the A.P.C.T. (Association des Peintres-Cartonniers de Tapisserie) in 1958. After this lightning start to his career, he produced hundreds of cartoons, in a style all his own, where long-legged waders and acrobats wend in and out of dreamscapes. Again, economy of means, with broad flat tints and a narrow chromatic range, for a singular theme: a heavenly body at the bottom of the sea, ‘escorted’ by worrying fish, a singular dawn (a leitmotif for the artist) of life.Aubusson tapestry woven in the Picaud workshop for the Verrière gallery. With signed label, n°EA. Circa 1970. -
Paysage au flamboyant (landscape with flamboyant)
In a similar vein to Toffoli, Raymond Poulet criss-crossed the world and his travels provided the themes that inspired his work.Aubusson tapestry woven by the Jean Laurent workshop. N°6/6. Circa 1990. -
Matin d'été (summer morning)
Aubusson tapestry woven in the Laurent workshop. With signed label, n°2/6. 1983.A former student at the ENAD in Aubusson, Lartigaud created his first tapestry cartoon in 1968. He went on to design hundreds more, most of them woven by the Four Workshop. Although his cartoons are mainly abstract, there is also a bucolic side to his work, that Fumeron would not have disowned. -
Composition
Tapestry woven by the artist. With signed label, and preparatory drawing. Circa 1980. -
Composition au chou (composition with cabbage)
Sam Szafran, best known as the painter (or rather, the water-colour and pastel artist) of philodendrons and staircases, was also, previously, in the early 1960’s, a painter of cabbages ; here is how he explained it : “I remember being taken by my grandfather to the synagogue in the rue Pavée. We walked through the Marais district. It was summer. The streets were filled with the abominable smell of cooking cabbage, because it was the cheapest, most wholesome vegetable”. From this period date his beginnings as a pastel artist, and his encounter with Lilette Keller who would become his wife, weaver and assistant to Jean Lurçat. It is thus at the meeting point of these elements and of the person who embodies them, that our tapestry has its origin, one of the very few made by the artist and his wife in an exemplary collaboration (in a similar way to Marthe Hennebert weaving for Lurçat) : a wonderfully realistic cabbage, rendered by very subtle shading, is caught up in a maelstrom of greenery (a thematic tapestry colour if ever there was one), which in some ways announces the opaque and dense philodendron pictures to come. Bibliography : Exhibition Catalogue Sam Szafran, obsessions d'un peintre, Paris, Musée de l'Orangerie, 2022-2023, p.175Tapestry woven By Lilette Keller. Circa 1963. -
Eveil du jour (Awakening of the day)
Aubusson tapestry woven in the Pinton workshop. With label, n°1/1. Circa 1980. -
New York
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. The theme, modernist urbanism, is a rare one for the artist (the tapestry is sometimes also entitled Chicago), and does not appear until quite late. We should not forget, however, the figure of his brother André, an architect, and the omnipresent theme of compartmentalisation: the skyscraper becomes an avatar of the wardrobe or the chequerboard. Bibliography : Tapisseries de Jean Lurçat 1939-1957, Pierre Vorms Editeur, 1957 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, ill. 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 signed label. 1960. -
Belles des mers (sea beauties)
Aubusson tapestry woven in the Legoueix workshop. 1953.After the traditional completion of some mural paintings in the 1930’s, he then arrived in Aubusson in 1936, became closely associated with Picart le Doux in 1947 and then joined the A.P.C.T. (Association des Peintres-Cartonniers de Tapisserie). From then on he devoted himself to tapestry with zeal and designed 167 cartoons, at first figurative following on from Picart le Doux and Saint-Saëns, then, influenced by the scientific themes that he dealt with, tending more towards abstraction. In 1981, two years before his death, he donated his studio to the Musée départemental de la tapisserie in Aubusson. A cartoon typical of Jullien's early style, figurative and poetic, and close to Picart le Doux. The theme (even if here it is mixed with Hellenism : mermaids, masks, etc.) of the depths of the sea (shown by Cousteau since the 1940s) is a recurrent one among the cartoon painters: Picart le Doux, of course, but also Lurçat, Perrot, Millecamps.... Bibliography : Exhibition catalogue Hommage à Louis-Marie Jullien, Aubusson, Musée départemental de la Tapisserie, 1983, n°25 -
Composition aux oiseaux (composition with birds)
Aubusson tapestry woven in the Laurent workshop. N°5/6. Circa 1980.A former student at the ENAD in Aubusson, Lartigaud created his first tapestry cartoon in 1968. He went on to design hundreds more, most of them woven by the Four Workshop. Although his cartoons are mainly abstract, his inspiration is varied, as shown by our cartoon, which is reminiscent of Picart le Doux.
