Icare (Icarus)
Aubusson tapestry woven by the Tabard workshop.
N°1/6.
Circa 1965.
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Amazonie (Amazonia)
Aubusson tapestry woven by the Hamot workshop. With signed label. 1962. 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 ... Since « Orénoque » dating from 1956 (Bruzeau n°72), South America recurrs regularly in the work of Picart le Doux. Here “la huppe”, a vertical cartoon (Bruzeau n°97) is enlarged horizontally by the addition of the river peopled with turtles, fish ...in a highly effective decorative ensemble. Bibliography : Marthe Belle-Jouffray, Jean Picart le Doux, Publications filmées d’art et d’histoire, 1966, ill. n°5 Maurice Bruzeau, Jean Picart le Doux, Murs de soleil, Editions Cercle d’art, 1972, ill. n°129 Exhibition Catalogue, Jean Picart le Doux, tapisseries, Musée de Saint-Denis, 1976 Exhibition Catalogue Jean Picart le Doux, Musée de la Poste, 1980, n°14 ill. -
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. -
Les Champs-Elysées (the Champs Elysées)
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, 1997Aubusson tapestry woven by the Pinton workshop for the Compagnie des arts Français. 1945. -
Arès et Aphrodite (Ares and Aphrodite)
« It is thus easy to understand that, having based my painting on my love of tapestry, it was relatively easy for me, and particularly tempting, to produce tapestries which were faithful to my painting” writes the artist in the exhibition catalogue for the 1970 show at the Galerie Verrière.It is not until 1961 that he started making designs (over 50) both for woven tapestries (at Aubusson, but also for the Mobilier National with, on occasion, the collaboration of Pierre Baudoin), but also those employing needlepoint. The artist’s very audacious palette is immediately recognisable in these cartons, with their use of primary colours. But if Lapicque’s artistic language is established in the 1950’s, the themes which appear in his work evolve with time : thus mythological subjects (recurrent in the history of tapestry making) appear in his work following a journey to Greece in 1964, and « Diane et Actéon », then « Pélops » were the first of his cartoons to be woven in Aubusson predating “Arès et Aphrodite” whose depiction is faithful to the ancient texts (Homer, Ovid) : Hephaestus throwing his net and the Olympian gods laughing at the scene.... Bibliography : Exhibition catalogue, Expo Lapicque, Lyons, Galerie Verrière 1970Aubusson tapestry woven in the Picaud workshop. With signed label, n°1/4. Circa 1970. -
Treilles (trellis)
Aubusson tapestry woven in the Pinton workshop for Leleu. With label. 1964.With a taste for the large-scale, influenced by Untersteller at the Ecole des Beaux Arts, Hilaire undertook numerous mural paintings. In the same vein, beginning in 1949, along with a number of other artists stimulated by Lurçat, (he would join the latter at the A.P.C.T. Association des Peintres-Cartonniers de Tapisserie) he designed a number of cartoons some of which were woven at Beauvais or at Les Gobelins. This tapestry hung in the dining-room of the villa Médy Roc, at the Cap d’Antibes, for which the Leleu studio designed furnishings and fittings starting in 1957 : their philosophy, inspired by Jacques Adnet’s theories of the interweaving of architecture, furniture and tapestry design , which should all be unified by a single view, was to lean into the idea of a tradition of good taste “à la française”, as interpreted by the best designers and artists of the period. With this in mind, another work, also by Hilaire, “Jardin à la française” was already in place in the dining-room before this tapestry, where a traditional trellis shelters birds of more exotic plumage, was installed in the same area in 1964. Both works appear in the film “Les seins de glace”, directed by Lautner featuring Delon, Brasseur and Mireille Darc, which was filmed on location in the villa. Provenance : villa Médy Roc, Cap d’Antibes Bibliography : Exhibition catalogue Hilaire, œuvre tissé, galerie Verrière, 1970 Exhibition catalogue, du trait à la lumière, Musée Départemental Georges de la Tour at Vic-sur-Seille, 2010. -
Les six cyprès (the six cypresses)
Aubusson tapestry woven in the Goubely workshop. With signed label. 1957. 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). Prassinos moved to Eygalières in 1951 and his first tapestries were designed at the same period : « Cyprès noir » and « Cyprès rouge », both from 1952, number among his very first cartoons, echoing the simultaneous discovery of a locality and a technique. Here the subject is revisited on a larger scale ; one of the 3 originals is in the possession of the Musée Municipal d’Arnhem. Bibliography : Exhibition Catalogue Mario Prassinos, œuvre tissé, Galerie la Demeure, 1961, ill. p.20-21 Exhibition catalogue Mario Prassinos, tapisseries monumentales, Abbaye de Montmajour, Arles, 1974 Mario Prassinos, œuvre tissé, La Demeure, 1974, n°20 Exhibition catalogue Mario Prassinos, Tapisseries , Aubusson, Musée départemental de le Tapisserie, 1984 Exhibition catalogue Prassinos, Tapisseries, Angers, Musée Jean Lurçat et de la Tapisserie Contemporaine, 1988 -
Composition
A friend of both Bertholle and Le Normand, with whom he produced several frescoes in the 1940’s, Idoux produced his first tapestry cartoon in 1946 and joined the A.P.C.T. in 1951. His tapestries, where geometrical and optical effects resonate in a grand harmony (and this is only the beginning of the 1950’s!) hark back to his work in stained glass (the church of Notre Dame in Royan for example). As a confirmation of his meteoric rise in the world of tapestry (producing around twenty cartoons in ten years), official recognition came with a commission for two tapestries “Jardin Magique” and “Fée Mirabelle” which were created for the 1st class saloon of the Atlantic ocean liner “France” (“Jardin Magique” is now kept at the eco-museum in St Nazaire).Aubusson tapestry woven in the Rivière des Borderies workshop. Circa 1950. -
Serpent d'étoiles (serpent of stars)
Aubusson tapestry woven by the Tabard workshop. With signed label. 1961.A member of the A.P.C.T. (Association des Peintres-Cartonniers de Tapisserie), Wogensky is one of the many artists who would follow in Lurçat’s footsteps immediately after the war. At first influenced by his predecessor, Wogensky’s subsequent work (159 cartoons according to the 1989 exhibition catalogue) would evolve during the 1960’s towards a, not completely self-avowed, lyrical abstraction, from cosmic-astronomical themes expressed in decomposed, moving, birdlike shapes to cartoons both more refined and less dense. Although always claiming to be a painter, the artist’s conception of tapestry is extremely well thought out : “the realisation of a mural cartoon…. requires the consideration of a space which is no longer ours alone, by the nature of its dimensions, its scale, it also imposes a grand gesture which transforms and accentuates our presence.” « Serpent d’étoiles » (Serpent of stars) references the constellation Serpens (but also inevitably Giono’s novel of the same name), at a time (the 1960’s) when his out and out lyricism led him to the evocation of celestial bodies, space, the galaxies ; from “Cassiopée” in 1961, “Chant des étoiles” in 1962 (which figured at the Biennale de Lausanne), to “Galaxie” (1970) now in the collection of the French Senate. A similar tapestry figures in the the collection of the Conseil Régional du Limousin. Bibliography : Exhibition Catalogue Robert Wogensky, tapisseries, Galerie la Demeure, 1962, ill. Exhibition catalogue Robert Wogensky, Aubusson, Musée départemental de la tapisserie, 1989 Exhibition catalogue Robert Wogensky, Angers, Musée Jean Lurçat et de la Tapisserie Contemporaine, 1989-1990, ill. p.20 Exhibition Catalogue Dialogues avec Lurçat, Musées de Basse-Normandie, 1992, ill. p.73 Gérard Denizeau, Denise Majorel, une vie pour la tapisserie, Aubusson, Musée départemental de la tapisserie, ill. p.67 -
Chèvrefeuilles (Honeysuckle/Goats and leaves)
Aubusson tapestry woven in the Goubely workshop. With signed label, n°1. 1973. A Benedictine monk and an illuminator, Dom Robert met Jean Lurçat in 1941 at the Abbey of En Calcat : while he never abandoned drawing (his watercolours, painted to life, would serve him as a reservoir of ideas for his tapestries), his work as a cartoonist (he was a member of the A.P.C.T. from its inception) would take on a considerable importance (at least a hundred cartoons, all numbered) and would be highly thought of. His immediately recognisable style, absence of perspective¸motifs inspired from the natural world (in a Paradisiac style) where stylised flora and fauna combine in a festive and extrovert exuberance, where the influence of mediaeval tapestry can be clearly felt ; poetic and colourful, Dom Robert’s cartoons are the incarnation of their author’s spiritual asceticism. Inaugurated in the Spring of 2015, the musée Dom Robert opened its doors in in the monastery-school in Sorèze in the department of the Tarn. Goats and foliage in all their variety, rather than « Honeysuckle » (Chèvre means goat and feuille means leaf in French n.tr.), Dom Robert was never one to turn his back on the possibility of a pun (as in “Plein champ” meaning Open field but to the ear it can be confused with Plainchant tr.n.). It is interesting that a goat appears also in that tapestry design from 1970. Here, on a uniquely large scale for this subject, the goats are displayed against an autumnal background, a reference to “l’Automne” (Autumn) which was the last of the series The Seasons completed in 1943. A similar design is on display at the Cité Internationale de la Tapisserie in Aubusson. Bibliography : Exhibition Catalogue Dom Robert, tapisseries récentes, galerie la Demeure, 1974, ill. p.15, cartoon p.23 Multi-authored, Dom Robert, Tapisseries, Editions Julliard, 1980, ill p.70-71, detail on front cover, cartoon p.85 Multi-authored, Dom Robert, Tapisseries, Editions Siloë-Sodec, 1990, ill. P.62-67 Exhibition Catalogue, Dom Robert, œuvre tissé, Angers, Musée Jean Lurçat et de la tapisserie contemporaine, 1990 Exhibition Catalogue, Hommage à Dom Robert, Musée départemental de la tapisserie, Aubusson, 1998 Multi-authored, la clef des champs, Dom Robert, Editions Privat, 2003, ill. p.124 Multi-authored, les saisons de Dom Robert, Tapisseries, Editions Hazan, 2014, ill p.164-167 B. Ythier, Guide du visiteur, Cité Internationale de la tapisserie d’Aubusson, ill. p.65 R. Guinot, hors-série la Montagne, une Cité pour la tapisserie d’Aubusson, 2018, ill. p.82 Multi-authored, la tapisserie française, Editions du Patrimoine, 2017, ill. 312-313
