Les Champs-Elysées (the Champs Elysées)
Aubusson tapestry woven by the Pinton workshop for the Compagnie des arts Français.
1945.
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The important and significant place that Maurice Brianchon occupies in the movement to renew the art of tapestry owes a lot to his relationship with Jacques Adnet. A teacher at the Ecole nationale supérieure des Arts décoratifs, Brianchon was known for his murals, also as a set designer for the theatre, and during the war years, as the creator of 6 cartoons for the Compagnie des Arts Français (which with the 2 others he produced for the Manufactures Nationales, will be the only ones he produced). If his style is similar to that of the Nabis (and most notably Vuillard), the themes he uses in his tapestries are more characteristic of the grand French tradition of which, at the time, the Compagnie des Arts, was the champion : fauns, divinities, anachronic juxtapositions... are evoked in a poetic and dream-like atmosphere which is both refined and even precious. ‘Le Ballet’, a carton woven at the Gobelins, is a contemporary work; while the general composition is retained here (actors on “the boards” in costumes similar to those designed by the artist at the time for Marivaux's “Fausses confidences”, side scenery, perspective, etc.), Brianchon opted for monochrome here and, for once, the carton woven in private workshops is larger than that produced at the Manufactures Nationales. Bibliography : J. Cassou, M. Damain, R. Moutard-Uldry, la tapisserie française et les peintres-cartonniers, Editions Tel, 1957 Cat. Expo. Dialogues avec Lurçat, Musées de Basse-Normandie, 1992 Symposium Jean Lurçat et la renaissance de la Tapisserie à Aubusson, Aubusson, Musée départemental de la tapisserie, 1992, ill. n°9 Cat. Expo. Le Mobilier National et les Manufactures Nationales des Gobelins et de Beauvais sous la IVe République, Beauvais, galerie nationale de la tapisserie, 1997
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Idylle pastorale (pastoral idyll)
Georges Rougier, who taught drawing at school in Aubusson, produced numerous cartoons for the Aubusson workshops and the Mobilier National, and worked alongside Marius Martin when he was head of ENAD. Along with Maingonnat and Faureau, Martin made him one of the main protagonists of a pictorial aesthetic resolutely turned towards tapestry, which was expressed in particular at the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs in Paris in 1925 (Rougier also had his own stand there!). Bibliography : Exhibition Catalogue « Tapisseries 1925. Aubusson, Beauvais, les Gobelins à l’Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs de Paris », Aubusson, Cité de la Tapisserie, 2012Aubusson tapestry. Circa 1930. -
Le clown (the clown)
Aubusson tapestry woven by the Hecquet workshop. With signed label, n°1/1. 1974. -
Mexicaine aux arums (mexican with arum lilies)
Toffoli produced a large number of tapestries in collaboration with the Robert Four workshop from 1976 onwards, designing several hundred cartoons. In them we find post-cubist transparent effects which are characteristic of the artist, as indeed are the subjects treated. Thus Toffoli’s tapestries do not differ from his painting : travelling for inspiration, here he illustrates scenes observed during his travels in South America.Aubusson tapestry woven by the Four workshop. With label, n°1/6. Circa 1990. -
La sylve (the forest)
Representing the prolific Belgian school of modern tapestry, Mary Dambiermont, is one of its most sensitive protagonists whose work is resolutely figurative. She made her tapestry début at the age of 24 in 1956 and that led her to a close collaboration with the Braquenié establishment in 1958 and from there to two participations in the Biennales de tapisserie in Lausanne in 1962 and 1965. The world she inhabits is a singular place peopled with hieratic figures, often feminine who inhabit dream-like landscapes which are strange and occasionally troubling. Sometimes however, nature is sufficient unto itself, although not often on the scale of this work (12 m2 !), abandoning any attempt at storytelling, as if an echo of bygone times in the history of Tapestry making : “With its twentieth century foliage, it reveals the ancient architecture of an immutable forest.” (Paul Caso, Mary Dambiermont, p.56) Bibliography : Paul Caso, Mary Dambiermont, Editions Arts et voyages, 1975, ill p.54-55Tapestry woven by the Braquenié workshop. With label. 1968. -
Composition
Aubusson tapestry woven in the Henry workshop. With signed label, n°1/1. 1984.Like other sculptors (Gilioli, Adam, Ubac...), Hairabédian turned to tapestry (his studio was located in Creuse from 1975 to 1985). In the absence of volume, his spectacular composition plays on the size of weaving stitches, the hollowing out of space with the blank warp... processes typical of the ‘New Tapestry’. -
Soleil d'août (august sun)
Aubusson tapestry woven by the Braquenié workshop. With signed label. 1958. 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 … The theme of the harvest first appeared in 1944 (“Harvest”, a copy of which is kept at the Cité de la Tapisserie in Aubusson), along with allegories of the seasons. The figure with the scythe is taken from ‘Winter’ in 1950, one of his most famous tapestries. Here, the composition has become monumental. 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, n°85 Exhibition Catalogue, Jean Picart le Doux, tapisseries, Musée de Saint-Denis, 1976 Exhibition Catalogue Jean Picart le Doux, Musée de la Poste, 1980 -
Lente approche (slow approach)
Aubusson tapestry woven in the Braquenié workshop. With label. Circa 1960. -
Les épées d'or (the golden swords)
Aubusson tapestry woven in the Braquenié workshop. With label. Circa 1960.
