Jean Lurçat

Lurçat's work is immense: however, it is his role in the renovation of the art of tapestry that earned him a place in posterity. From 1917, he began with canvas works, then, in the 1920s and 30s, he worked with Marie Cuttoli. His first collaboration with the Gobelins dates back to 1937, when he simultaneously discovered the Apocalypse tapestry of Angers, which definitively encouraged him to devote himself to tapestry. He will tackle technical questions first with François Tabard, then on the occasion of his installation in Aubusson during the war, he will define his system: large stitch, counted tones, numbered drawn cartoons.

A gigantic production begins then (more than 1000 cartoons), amplified by the desire to involve his painter friends, the creation of the A.P.C.T. (Association of Painter-Cartoonists of Tapestry) and collaboration with the La Demeure gallery and Denise Majorel, then by his role as tireless propagator of the medium across the World.

His woven work reflects a specifically decorative art of imagery, in a very personal, cosmogonic symbolic iconography (sun, planets, zodiac, 4 elements…), stylized vegetation, animals (goats, roosters, butterflies, chimeras…), standing out against a background without perspective (deliberately removed from painting), and intended, in his most ambitious cartoons, to share a vision that is both poetic (he sometimes sprinkles these tapestries with quotations) and philosophical (the major themes are addressed from the war on: freedom, resistance, brotherhood, truth… ) and whose culminating point will be the "Song of the World" (Jean Lurçat Museum, former Saint-Jean hospital, Angers), unfinished at his death.

Emblematic and synthetic work of Lurçat's inspiration: war tapestry (if it dates back to 1947, it constitutes a form of symbolic monument to the dead, on the scale of France, itself illustrated, and adorned with a tricolour leaf), tapestry-poetry (a poem of Resistance in addition), tapestry with cupboard (a leitmotiv). 5 copies were woven, 3 of which are in public collections, in Aubusson, Quebec and Moscow.

Bibliography:
Tapisseries de Jean Lurçat 1939-1957, Pierre Vorms Editeur, 1957
Exhibition Cat. Lurçat, 10 ans après, Musée d'Art moderne de la ville de Paris, 1976
Exhibition Cat. Les domaines de Jean Lurçat, Angers, Musée Jean Lurçat et de la tapisserie contemporaine, 1986
Symposium Jean Lurçat et la renaissance de la tapisserie à Aubusson, Aubusson, Musée départemental de la Tapisserie, Aubusson, Musée départemental de la Tapisserie, 1992
Exhibition Cat. Jean Lurçat, le combat et la victoire, centenaire, Aubusson, Musée départemental de la Tapisserie, 1992, ill. p.57
Exhibition Cat. Dialogues avec Lurçat, Musées de Basse-Normandie, 1992
R. Guinot, la tapisserie d'Aubusson et Felletin, éditions Dessagne, 1992, ill.p.20-21
Exhibition Cat. Jean Lurçat, Donation Simone Lurçat, Académie des Beaux-Arts, 2004
R. Guinot, la tapisserie d'Aubusson et de Felletin, Lucien Souny, 2009, ill. p.92
G. Denizeau, Jean Lurçat, Liénart, 2013, ill. fig.114 p.111
M. Mathias, Lurçat-Aragon, poésie partagée, Mémoires de la Société des sciences naturelles, historiques et archéologiques de la Creuse, tome 60, 2014-2015, p.439-444
Exhibition Cat. Jean Lurçat au seul bruit du soleil, Paris, galerie des Gobelins, 2016, ill. fig.6 p.172