Marc Saint-Saëns

Lurçat approached Saint-Saëns, initially a fresco painter, from 1940 onwards. And, during the war, he produced his first allegorical masterpieces, tapestries of indignation, combat, and resistance: "the Foolish Virgins", "Theseus and the Minotaur". After the war, he naturally joined Lurçat, with whom he shared convictions (on the numbered cartoon and counted tones, on the specific writing required for tapestry, ...) within the A.P.C.T. (Association of Tapestry Cartoonists). His universe, where the human figure, stretched and elongated, holds a considerable place (compared in particular to the place it occupies among his colleagues Lurçat, or Picart le Doux), revolves around traditional themes: woman, Commedia dell'arte, Greek myths, ... sublimated by the brilliance of the colors and the simplification of the layout. He then evolved, in the 60s, towards more lyrical, almost abstract cartoons, where cosmic elements and forces dominate.

The bestiary of Saint-Saëns remains less extensive than that of his peers, Lurçat, Perrot, or Dom Robert, the main illustrator of the peacock. Here, the treatment, as if detached, of a similar motif (although more resembling a rooster than a peacock), testifies to the variety of solutions of the cartoonists of the time.

Bibliography :
Cat. Expo. Saint-Saëns, La Demeure gallery, 1970
Cat. Expo. Saint-Saëns, woven work, Aubusson, Departmental Museum of Tapestry, 1987
Cat. Expo. Marc Saint-Saëns, tapestries, 1935-1979, Angers, Jean Lurçat Museum and Contemporary Tapestry, 1997-1998