Mario PRASSINOS

« I became interested in tapestry primarily because I ’was excited by the technique of the cartoon numbered system which consists of creating a mental coloured image using a code…..Tapestry is an essential exercise. As I ’have practiced it, it may be a desire to question the smallest details of a work made on a two‑dimensional plane » (remarks collected in Cat. Exp. Prassinos, retrospective of the painted and drawn work, Puyricard, 1983) That is the credo. It was in 1951 that Prassinos produced his first cartoons (most, about 150, will be woven by the Goubely workshop); then he joined the A.P.C.T. (Association of Painter‑Cartoonners of Tapestry). After several cartoons on the theme of birds, Prassinos, like other artists close to Lurçat nevertheless (Matégot, Wogensky,…), will resolutely steer tapestry toward abstraction, in a personal style made of interlocking sinuous forms, in contrasting tones (often within a colour range of black‑red‑brown‑beige).

We find, in this cartoon, the forms, abstract, complex and interlocked, typical of the ’artist, as well as his delicate play of gray chinés, carried here to its zenith. The near-bichromy and the ternary composition, as the title testifies, are, at the ’time, rarer, awaiting « les 3 P » or « Parc ».

Bibliography :
Cat. Expo. Mario Prassinos, woven work, Galerie la Demeure, 1961
Cat. Expo. Prassinos, monumental tapestries, abbey of Montmajour, Arles, 1974
Mario Prassinos, woven work, La Demeure, 1974, ill. No.100
Cat. Expo. Mario Prassinos, Tapestries, Aubusson, Departmental Museum of Tapestry, 1984
Cat. Expo. Prassinos, Tapestries, Angers, Jean Lurçat Museum and Contemporary Tapestry, 1988