Marc Saint-Saëns

Aubusson Tapestry woven by Tabard workshop.
With its ribbon.
1959.

Lurçat solicited 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, naturally, he joined Lurçat, with whom he shared convictions (about the numbered cartoon and counted tones, about 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 and Picart le Doux), revolves around traditional themes: women, Commedia dell'arte, Greek myths, ... sublimated by the brilliance of the colors and the simplification of the layout. He then evolved, in the 1960s, towards more lyrical, almost abstract cartoons, where cosmic elements and forces dominate.

The themes of music, theater, and more specifically the Comedia dell'Arte (« the Italian Comedy », 1947 cartoon) are omnipresent in Saint-Saëns: he respects the figures, Lelio and Isabelle on the left, Pierrot, the Captain and Harlequin on the right, with very particular drawings, not devoid of humor, in their traditional costumes. The first copy will be in the collections of the Shah of Iran.

Bibliography:
Lawrence Jeppson, Murals of wool, Washington D.C., Jeppson galleries, 1960, ill. n°12
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