Marc Saint-Saëns

Lurçat solicited Saint-Saëns, initially a fresco painter, from 1940 onwards. And, during the war, he produced his first allegorical masterpieces, tapestries of indignation, combat, and resistance: "the Foolish Virgins", "Theseus and the Minotaur". After the war, naturally, he joined Lurçat, with whom he shared convictions (on the numbered cartoon and counted tones, on the specific writing required for tapestry,…) within the A.P.C.T. (Association of Painters-Cartoonists of Tapestry). His universe, where the human figure, stretched and elongated, holds a considerable place (compared notably to the place it occupies among his colleagues Lurçat, or Picart le Doux), revolves around traditional themes: woman, Commedia dell'arte, Greek myths,… sublimated by the brilliance of colors and the simplification of the layout. He then evolved, in the 1960s, towards more lyrical, almost abstract cartoons, where cosmic elements and forces dominate.

“The Lightning” [another name for our cartoon]… demonstrates the new orientation of Saint-Saëns, evident from the 1960s; it evokes cosmic forces [or, with our title, physical phenomena] less by the precision of the drawing than by the power, the very stridency of the colour…. This tapestry adorned the poster of the Aérospatiale on the occasion of the inauguration of its Cultural Centre in Toulouse in 1971”, Michèle Heng tells us, in the catalogue of the Aubusson exhibition.

Bibliography :
Cat. Expo. Saint-Saëns, woven work, Aubusson, Departmental Museum of Tapestry, 1987, reproduced p.47
Cat. Expo. Marc Saint-Saëns, tapestries, 1935-1979, Angers, Jean Lurçat Museum and Contemporary Tapestry, 1997-1998