Jorj MORIN

The secret

Tapestry woven by the Saint-Cyr workshop.
With its ribbon signed by the artist, No. I/VI.
1971.

After establishing himself in Nantes at the beginning of the 1930s, Morin practiced commercial drawing while also working on painting and engraving, initially figurative, then adopting an abstract style from 1954 onwards. His interest in monumental decoration was expressed through mosaic (notably within the framework of the 1% artistic law, primarily for educational institutions in the Nantes region), as well as in tapestry. Indeed, from 1952, he was commissioned to create religious-themed tapestries that were woven by the Plasse le Caisne workshop (which also worked for Manessier, Le Moal…), before collaborating with Pierre Daquin's Saint-Cyr workshop from 1969, one of the major protagonists of the New Tapestry in France, and being exhibited at the Galerie la Demeure. Subsequently, until 1982, other cartoons were woven by the workshops of the Regional School of Fine Arts in Angers, then by the artist's own daughter, who was a weaver herself.

With Daquin as the weaver (and as he is in his own works), the material becomes a mode of expression, technical mastery an absolute mastered: the surfaces are animated, vibrant with differences in textures, points...and Morin's poetic cartoons, with delicately symmetrized signs, ideally interpreted.