Maurice SAVIN

A versatile artist (engraver, medalist, ceramist, fresco painter…), Savin was solicited during the war by Guillaume Janneau, who admired the timeless and realistic monumentality of his aesthetic (and suspected that it would not need to be transposed to suit Tapestry), to design cartoons for the National Manufactures: "the pleasures and rural works" (4 cartoons), then the "12 months of the year" were created simultaneously with his work with the Compagnie des Arts Français. The influence of the technical aspects of medieval tapestry is very prevalent in the artist, attentive to natural dyes in a reduced range, to simple forms allowed by the technique of the large stitch,… He was one of the most represented artists at the seminal exhibition of 1946, with 7 pieces (only Lurçat, Saint-Saëns and Gromaire had more).

“The harvest” is contemporary with the cardboard designed for the Gobelins: “The apple harvest”, from the series on “rural pleasures and labours”. We find the same characteristics specific to the artist: a limited but vivid chromatic range, simplified and monumental forms, density of composition, and a rustic flavour that comes straight from medieval tapestry.

Bibliography :
Cat. Expo. French Tapestry from the Middle Ages to the present day, Paris, Modern Art Museum, 1946
Cat. Expo. National Furniture and National Manufactures under the Fourth Republic, Beauvais, National Gallery of Tapestry, 1997
Cat. Expo. The Gobelins Manufactory in the 1^st half of the 20th century, Beauvais, National Gallery of Tapestry, 1999