Birds of prey
Aubusson tapestry woven by the Goubely workshop.
With its label signed with the stamp, and the artist's son, No. 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 up his supreme quality as a master and craftsman, all of this made him one of the most perfect tapestry makers of his time", said Jean Cassou (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 colour 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 wove 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 would no longer produce cartoons, leaving to 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 both abundant and rigorously arranged, chromatic range narrowed (we will also note, in occupied France, the tricolour dominant of the cartoon)… The atmosphere is also more disturbing than in the other tapestries woven at the time.
Bibliography:
Contemporary Tapestries Lurçat Gromaire, éditions Braun et cie, 1943, ill. The Point, Aubusson and the revival 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 painters cartoonWeavers, Tel, 1957
Exhibition Catalog, Gromaire, woven work, Aubusson, Musée de la tapisserie, 1995, reproduced p.49
Colloquium, Jean Lurçat and the revival of tapestry in Aubusson, Aubusson, Musée départemental de la tapisserie, 1992, ill.14 (detail)
