Marc Saint-Saëns

Lurçat approached Saint-Saëns, initially a fresco painter, as early as 1940. During the war, Saint-Saëns produced his first allegorical masterpieces, tapestries of indignation, struggle, and resistance: “The Foolish Virgins,” “Theseus and the Minotaur.” After the war, he naturally joined Lurçat, whose convictions he shared (regarding numbered cartoons and limited tones, the specific style required for tapestry, etc.), within the APCT (Association of Tapestry Cartoon Painters). His world, in which the elongated, stretched human figure holds considerable prominence (especially compared to the role it plays in the work of his contemporaries Lurçat or Picart le Doux), revolves around traditional themes: woman, the Commedia dell'arte, Greek myths, etc., all sublimated by the brilliance of the colors and the simplification of the layout. In the 1960s, he would later move towards more lyrical, almost abstract designs, dominated by cosmic elements and forces.

Saint-Saëns' bestiary remains less extensive than that of his peers, Lurçat, Perrot, or Dom Robert, the principal illustrator of the peacock. Here, the treatment, as if detached from reality, of a similar motif (although resembling a rooster more than a peacock), testifies to the variety of solutions employed by the cartoon painters of the time.

Bibliography:
Exhibition catalog, Saint-Saëns, La Demeure gallery, 1970
; Exhibition catalog, Saint-Saëns, woven works, Aubusson, Departmental Museum of Tapestry, 1987;
Exhibition catalog, Marc Saint-Saëns, tapestries, 1935-1979, Angers, Jean Lurçat Museum and Contemporary Tapestry, 1997-1998