The fruit bowl
Aubusson tapestry woven by the Braquenié workshop.
With its ribbon signed by the artist.
1956.
Jean Picart le Doux is one of the great animators of the revival of tapestry. His beginnings in the field date back to 1943: he then created cartoons for the liner 'La Marseillaise'. Close to Lurçat, whose theories he espouses (limited tones, numbered cartoons, ...), he is a founding member of the A.P.C.T. (Association of Tapestry Cartoonists), and soon a professor at the National Higher School of Decorative Arts. The State commissions numerous cartoons, most of which are woven in Aubusson, and some at the Gobelins: the most spectacular ones will be for the University of Caen, the Théâtre du Mans, the liner France or the Prefecture of Creuse, .... If the conceptions of Picart le Doux are close to those of Lurçat, his sources of inspiration, his themes, are too, but in a more decorative than symbolic register, where the stars (the sun, the moon, the stars ...), the elements, nature (wheat, the vine, fish, birds ...), man, and texts coexist, ....
The lattice background is a cliché with Picart le Doux in the 1950s, embodied in particular in 'Still Life with Fountain', woven at the Gobelins in 1952, an expression of a certain decorative taste inspired by tapestries from earlier periods. 'The Fruit Bowl' reprises 'Fruits and Guitar', more extensive, woven at Berthaut in 1955.
Bibliography :
Maurice Bruzeau, Jean Picart le Doux, Walls of sun, Editions Cercle d’art, 1972, reproduced n°64
Cat. Exp. Jean Picart le Doux Tapestries, Municipal Museum of Art and History, Saint-Denis, 1976
Cat. Exp. Jean Picart le Doux, Post Office Museum, 1980
