Jean Lurçat

Lurçat's work was immense: nevertheless, 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 canevas works, then, in the 1920s and 1930s, he worked with Marie Cuttoli. His first collaboration with the Gobelins dates from 1937, when he also discovered simultaneously the Angers Apocalypse tapestry series, which finally encouraged him to devote himself definitively to tapestry. He addressed technical questions first with François Tabard, then, on the occasion of 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 bring along his painter friends, the creation of the A.P.C.T. (Association des Peintres-Cartonniers de Tapisserie), and the collaboration with the gallery La Demeure and Denise Majorel, and then, through his role as an tireless promoter of the medium across the world. His Woven work bears witness to a specifically decorative "imagier" art, with a highly personal symbolic iconography, cosmogonic (sun, planets, zodiac, the 4 elements…), stylized vegetal motifs, and animal subjects (goats, cocks, butterflies, chimeras…)—all set against a background without perspective (deliberately distanced from painting), and intended, in his most ambitious cartoons, to share both a poetic vision (he even sometimes adorns these tapestries with quotations) and a philosophical one (the major themes were addressed from the war onward: freedom, resistance, fraternity, truth…).

His woven work bears witness to a specifically decorative artist-imaginer’s art, with a highly personal, symbolic and cosmogonic iconography (sun, planets, zodiac, the 4 elements…), stylized vegetal forms, and animals (goats, roosters, butterflies, chimeras…) set against a background with no perspective (deliberately distanced from painting). In his most ambitious Cartoons, it was intended to share both a poetic vision (he sometimes even intersperses these tapestries with quotations) and a philosophical one (the major themes were addressed from the war on: freedom, resistance, fraternity, truth…), culminating in the “Chant du Monde” (Musée Jean Lurçat, former Saint-Jean hospital, Angers), unfinished at his death.

The closeness of Lurçat to the literary world was self-evident, both as an illustrator of books and in his tapestries, where verses by Eluard, Aragon,… were Woven, in a communion of inspiration that was often cited. These connections sometimes dated back to the Resistance and the maquis: this was probably the case with Luc Estang, who also took part in the design of verses appearing on « le Vin » (Beaune, Musée du vin de Bourgogne), a tapestry contemporary to ours.

Bibliography:
Tapestries by Jean Lurçat 1939–1957, Pierre Vorms Editeur, 1957
Cat. Exh. Jean Lurçat, Nice, Musée des Ponchettes, 1968
Exhibition cat. Lurçat, 10 years later, 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
Exhibition cat. Dialogues with Lurçat, Musées de Basse-Normandie, 1992
Cat. Expo. Drôles de trames, Medieval and Contemporary Tapestries, Beaune, 2002-2003
Exhibition cat. Jean Lurçat, Donation Simone Lurçat, Académie des Beaux-Arts, 2004
Gérard Denizeau, Jean Lurçat, Liénart, 2013
Exhibition cat. Jean Lurçat, Meister der französischen Moderne, Halle, Kunsthalle, 2016
Exhibition cat. Jean Lurçat au seul bruit du soleil, Paris, galerie des Gobelins, 2016
Cat. Exh. Jean Lurçat, la terre, le feu, l’eau, l’air, Perpignan, Musée d’art Hyacinthe Rigaud, 2024