Jean PICART LE DOUX

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 Painters-Cartoonists of Tapestry), 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 Theatre of Le Mans, the liner France or the Prefecture of Creuse, .... If Picart le Doux's conceptions are close to those of Lurçat, his sources of inspiration and themes are also, 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.

Seaweed (and more broadly the underwater world) has been a leitmotif for Picart le Doux throughout his career, since "the seaweed" of 1946; we can mention "Spiralgues", "Bush of seaweed", "the green seaweed",… "The small seaweed" takes up, on a smaller scale, "the seaweed", a cartoon of 260 x 250 cm, Leleu being the publisher. The eponymous seaweed, like a vegetable lace, surrounds a square of shells and starfish, a still life that is the true subject of the cartoon.

Bibliography:
Marthe Belle-Joufray, Jean Picart le Doux, Filmed Art and History Publications, 1966
Maurice Bruzeau, Jean Picart le Doux, Walls of Sun, Editions Cercle d'art, 1972
Exh. Cat. Jean Picart le Doux Tapestries, Municipal Museum of Art and History, Saint-Denis, 1976
Exh. Cat. Jean Picart le Doux, Postal Museum, 1980