The owls
Tapestry woven by the Wit factory.
Circa 1960.
Edmond Dubrunfaut can be considered as the great renovator of Belgian tapestry in the 20th century. He founded a weaving workshop in Tournai in 1942, then created the Tournai Tapestry Renovation Centre in 1947. He provided numerous cartoons for various Belgian workshops (Chaudoir, de Wit,…) intended to decorate Belgian embassies around the World. Moreover, Dubrunfaut, from 1947 to 1978, taught monumental art at the Mons Academy of Fine Arts, then, in 1979, participated in the creation of the Tournai Foundation for Tapestry, Textile Arts and Wall Arts, a veritable conservatory of tapestry in Wallonia. His style, figurative, often using strong color contrasts, is highly inspired by animals and nature (like Perrot, for example, the artist has a strong tropism for ornithology).
From 1955 onwards, and throughout the 1960s, the Wit factory wove a considerable number of tapestries based on Dubrunfaut's designs, with human figures soon giving way to floral subjects, and especially birds.
Bibliography :
Exhibition Catalog. Dubrunfaut and the Renaissance of Tapestry, paintings, drawings, paintings, Museum of Fine Arts Mons, 1982-1983.
