Maurice André

Maurice André stayed in Aubusson throughout the war. Founder of the cooperative group 'Tapisserie de France', and member of the A.P.C.T. (Association of Tapestry Cartoonists), he developed a personal aesthetic, far from Lurçat, made of rigorous cubist flat areas, in a often purified chromatic range, and received ambitious public commissions, for the Council of Europe in Strasbourg ('A United Europe in Work and Peace'), or the French Pavilion for the 1958 Exhibition in Brussels ('Modern Technology in the Service of Man'). Naturally (and like Wogensky, Prassinos,…), he then evolved towards abstraction, first rather lyrical then in a style increasingly geometric, in a trajectory very close to that of Matégot.

Maurice André's first cartoon, 'Aubusson', demonstrates both his adherence to Lurçat's technical principles (counted tones, flat areas…) and what distinguishes him in aesthetic terms. (Similarly to Gromaire, who dealt with the same subject a few years earlier). It is in fact Dubreuil, whose son-in-law he is, that he is close to at that time; his stylistic emancipation will come soon after. The historical significance of this cartoon is undeniable: it is one of the few to illustrate the city (even more synthesized than Gromaire's) at a time when the Renaissance of Tapestry is still embryonic.