Composition
Aubusson tapestry woven by the Pinton workshop.
With its ribbon, No. 1/1.
1974.
Jean Bazaine, like many of his contemporaries, has always pursued an intense activity related to mural art, in monumental works. Although he is best known as a designer of stained glass or mosaics, he also created tapestry cartoons, starting from the late 1930s. These achievements fall within the framework of a renewal of sacred art, of which Bazaine, especially after the war, will be one of the main protagonists.
However, Bazaine's creations are not only intended for religious buildings. His mastery of mural art was expressed in commissions for mosaics, for the UNESCO building or the Maison de la Radio, but also for tapestries, woven in the National Manufactures, or in Aubusson, for the Lille Palace of Justice, or the Strasbourg Town Hall. It is in this context that the commission from the French Building Federation was made, for its headquarters, at the beginning of the 1970s to a recognized artist, almost official (Grand National Prize for Arts in 1964, exhibition at the National Museum of Modern Art in 1965), who responded with our vast rhythmic and lyrical composition, chromatically homogeneous: unfortunately, the ribbon, erased, deprives us of the title of the work, from an artist who did not want to be abstract.
Provenance: Headquarters of the French Federation of Building
