Lucien COUTAUD

A painter and engraver, Lucien Coutaud also worked for the theater with Dullin and Barrault, creating numerous sets and costumes. However, it was his meeting with Marie Cuttoli in 1933 that led him to tapestry; she initially commissioned him primarily to design chair covers. Most of his subsequent tapestries were woven at Pinton for the Compagnie des Arts Français, which aimed to integrate tapestry into interior design. The artist's last three tapestries in 1960 attest to his renown, as "Exotic Gardens" adorned the First Class lounge of the ocean liner "France." Coutaud's qualities as a scenographer, influenced by Surrealism, are reflected in his woven work: his world is figurative, yet stylized (the forms are sharp and fragmented), resolutely dreamlike, and often features unusual borders.

The cartoon "Lunar Musical Instruments" (Coutaud himself drew his gouache cartoons, without using numbered cartoons) dates from 1950: it is one of the artist's rare tapestries (along with "Marine Harp" and "Spring Violin," other examples of his fondness for musical still lifes) where the human figure is seldom present. The center of the composition (the scene) is occupied by the instruments, while two heads (winders, musicians in the pit) adorn the lower corners, all within an austere, nocturnal (lunar) landscape, illustrating the dream worlds so dear to the artist.
The Gothenburg City Theatre holds a copy of this tapestry.

Bibliography:
J. Cassou, M. Damain, R. Moutard-Uldry, *La tapisserie française et les peintres cartonniers*, Tel, 1957, ill. p. 86
; Exhibition catalog *Lucien Coutaud, oeuvre tissé*, Aubusson, Musée Départemental de la Tapisserie, 1988-1989, illustrated pp. 42-43
; Exhibition catalog *Le théâtre en tapisserie, Cavaillès, Lurçat, Matisse*, Sorèze, Abbaye-école Musée Dom Robert, 2017, ill. no. 8