Birds of prey
Aubusson tapestry woven by the Goubely workshop.
With its signed ribbon, and the artist's son, n°6/6
1941.
Gromaire's woven work is modest: 11 cartoons, designed between 1938 and 1944, most of them in Aubusson itself. "His rigorous constructions, his simplifications, his taste for grand composition and fundamental ideas, his knowledge as a colorist and to sum it all up his supreme quality as a master and craftsman, all of this made him one of the most perfect tapestry makers of his time", Jean Cassou could say (Cat. Expo. Marcel Gromaire, Paris, National Museum of Modern Art, 1963).
It was Guillaume Janneau, at the head of the Mobilier National, who called on him in 1938, convinced that his style (simplification of forms, geometric design outlined in black, influence of Cubism, limited palette...) would advantageously meet the new aesthetic problems that tapestry must solve to be reborn (simplified color ranges, synthetic cartoons,...): first with a commission on the theme of the four elements, followed by another (« the Seasons »), intended to be executed in Aubusson. Gromaire, in 1940, joined Lurçat and Dubreuil. Working alone, meticulously (many drawings are preparatory to the cartoon, painted, and not numbered as with Lurçat), in close collaboration with Suzanne Goubely, who will weave all his cartoons, he spent 4 years in Aubusson, devoting all his creative energy to tapestry. At the end of the war, he left Creuse, and will no longer produce cartoons, leaving Lurçat the place of great initiator of the renewal of tapestry.
“Birds of prey” is one of the 5 cartoons designed by Gromaire for the Goubely workshop during the War, and it is emblematic of his style: inspiration from local landscapes, lack of perspective, decorative aspect abundant and rigorously arranged, chromatic range narrowed (we will note, in this occupied France, the tricolor dominant of the cartoon)… The atmosphere is also more disturbing than in the other tapestries then woven.
Bibliography:
Contemporary Tapestries Lurçat Gromaire, editions Braun and Co., 1943, ill. The Point, Aubusson and the Renaissance of Tapestry, March 1946, reproduced p.35
Jean Lurçat, French Tapestry, Bordas, 1947, plate 27
J. Cassou, M. Damain, R. Moutard-Uldry, French Tapestry and Cartoon Painters, Tel, 1957
Exhibition Catalog, Gromaire, Woven Work, Aubusson, Tapestry Museum, 1995, reproduced p.49
Colloquium, Jean Lurçat and the Renaissance of Tapestry in Aubusson, Aubusson, Departmental Tapestry Museum, 1992, ill.14 (detail)
Exhibition Catalog. The Gobelins Manufactory in the First Half of the 20th Century, Beauvais, National Tapestry Gallery, 1999
