Jean Lurçat

The work of Lurçat is immense; however, it was his role in the renovation of the art of tapestry that earned him a place in posterity. As early as 1917, he began with works on canvas; then, in the 1920s and 1930s, he worked with Marie Cuttoli. His first collaboration with the Gobelins dates from 1937, when he discovered, at the same time, the Angers Apocalypse tapestry series, which definitively encouraged him to devote himself to tapestry. He approached technical questions first with François Tabard, and then, during his installation in Aubusson during the war, he defined his system: large point, counted tones, drawn Cartoons, numbered. A gigantic production then began (more than 1000 Cartoons), amplified by his desire to involve his painter friends, the creation of the A.P.C.T. (Association des Peintres-Cartonniers de Tapisserie), and his collaboration with the gallery La Demeure and Denise Majorel—then, through his role as an tireless promoter of the medium across the world. His Woven work bears witness to an art of the designer-imager that is specifically decorative, with a highly personal symbolic iconography that is cosmogonic (sun, planets, the zodiac, the 4 elements…), stylized vegetal imagery, and animals (goats, cocks, butterflies, chimeras…) set against a background without perspective (deliberately distanced from painting). In his most ambitious Cartoons, it was intended both to share a poetic vision (he also sometimes enriches these tapestries with quotations) and a philosophical one (the major themes were addressed already during the war: freedom, resistance, fraternity, truth…). Its culminating point would be the “Chant du Monde” ( Musée Jean Lurçat, former Saint-Jean hospital, Angers), left unfinished at his death. This vertical format with a motif of enclosed circular compartments and a bordeaux ground returned sporadically to Lurçat in the second half of the 1940s (see “Bosquet,” for example). While the motif of the owl, to which the title refers, does indeed belong to Lurçat’s bestiary, it has more the appearance of a cock—an indispensable leitmotif—amid a confusion of motifs dear to the artist. Bibliographie : Cat. Expo. La tapisserie française, Musée d’Art moderne, Paris, 1946 Tapisseries de Jean Lurçat 1939-1957, Pierre Vorms Editeur, 1957 Cat. Expo. Jean Lurçat, tapisseries de la fondation Rothmans, Musée de Metz, 1969 Cat. Expo. Lurçat, 10 ans après, Musée d’Art moderne de la ville de Paris, 1976 Cat. Expo. Les domaines de Jean Lurçat, Angers, Musée Jean Lurçat et de la tapisserie contemporaine, 1986 Colloque Jean Lurçat et la renaissance de la tapisserie à Aubusson, Aubusson, Musée départemental de la Tapisserie, 1992 Cat. Expo. Dialogues avec Lurçat, Musées de Basse-Normandie, 1992 Cat. Expo. Jean Lurçat, Donation Simone Lurçat, Académie des Beaux-Arts, 2004 Gérard Denizeau, Jean Lurçat, Liénart, 2013 Cat. Expo. Jean Lurçat, Meister der französischen Moderne, Halle, Kunsthalle, 2016 Cat. Expo. Jean Lurçat au seul bruit du soleil, Paris, galerie des Gobelins, 2016