Paul VERA

Major protagonist of the decorative arts in the broad sense (ceramics, gardens, frescoes, book illustration…), Paul Vera has always shown great interest in tapestry: as early as 1923, he created for the École Nationale d’Art Décoratif d’Aubusson a « Flora toilette » with already limited tones (29), 15 years before Lurçat. He will also supply cartoons to the Gobelins and to Beauvais in the 1930s and 1940s, before participating, from 1942, in the adventure of the ART workshops of Antoine Behna, with the assistance of Guillaume Janneau: he was the principal contributor, providing 15 cartoons.

Without mentioning the illustrated text, work by Charles d’Orléans (1394-1465), references to medieval (and/or classical) tapestry are numerous: the words as plastic motifs, the strips of vivid colors, the lack of perspective, the allegories of the seasons, the putti, the “mille-fleurs” background… The bicycle appears in this context of natural harmonies as an incongruity, deferential to modernity.

Bibliography:
G. Janneau, A. Behna, Tapestries of our time, 1950, No. 30