Robert WOGENSKY

Wogensky met Lurçat in 1939, but he only worked with him after the war, creating his first cartoon in 1945 (which was already titled 'the birds'), and soon joining the A.P.C.T. (Association of Tapestry Cartoonists). Professor of mural art at the National Higher School of Applied Arts in Paris, Wogensky created 159 cartoons until the 1980s, most of which were woven by Legoueix. 'Wool has warm blood like man. It gives us confidence and reassures us. A wool wall is a more human, more living wall' (comments collected in Robert Guinot, 'Tapestry of Aubusson and Felletin', Lucien Souny, 2009). It is this creed that will inspire Wogensky's creation, in lyrical flights (in the literal sense since the bird, often stylized, is one of his favorite subjects) (some cartoons, particularly from the late 1970s, are resolutely abstract), in his 'Natural History' cartoons (title of one of his tapestries, in 1961), or 'cosmic' cartoons, with subjects of constellations or natural elements. 'I have always enjoyed working with large formats' he will confide again to Robert Guinot.

If our cartoon appears modest relative to certain official commissions by Wogensky (University of Strasbourg, Senate Conference Room,…), its subject allows for a spatial dilation, a surge of these elliptical bird motifs, revitalized by the chromatic energy of the bright red flat background.

Bibliography :
Cat. Expo. 25 years of French tapestry 1944, Paris, Gobelins manufacture, 1969, n°33
Cat. Expo. Tapestry and Space, Châteauroux, Cordeliers convent, 1978, n°21
Cat. Expo. Robert Wogensky, the woven work, Aubusson, Departmental Museum of Tapestry, 1989, ill. p.34
Cat. Expo. Robert Wogensky, Angers, Jean Lurçat Museum and Contemporary Tapestry, 1989, ill. p.20