The flame
Portalegre tapestry woven by the Fino workshop.
With his label signed by the artist, No. 2/6.
Circa 1965.
Matégot, first a decorator, then a creator of objects and furniture (an activity he renounced in 1959), met François Tabard in 1945, and gave him his first cartoons, initially figurative, then soon abstract, from the 1950s onwards. He became a member of the A.P.C.T. (Association of Painter-Cartoonists of Tapestry) in 1949, participated in multiple international exhibitions (Matégot, like Lurçat before him, was an indefatigable advocate of tapestry), responded to numerous public commissions, sometimes monumental ("Rouen", 85 m2 for the prefecture of Seine-Maritime, but also tapestries for Orly, for the Maison de la Radio, for the IMF...) and produced no less than 629 cartoons until the 1970s. In 1990, the Matégot Foundation for contemporary tapestry was inaugurated in Bethesda, USA. Matégot was part, along with other artists like Wogensky, Tourlière or Prassinos, of those who resolutely oriented wool towards abstraction, initially lyrical, then geometric in the 1970s, exploiting different technical aspects of the craft: gradations, beatings, stitched, pointillist..
Cartoon abstract characteristic of the artist in the mid-60s: the evocation of the flame, stylized in an aggressive purple, refers to Matégot's interest in industry, technique, but also in the woven transparencies of which he was the champion.
Bibliography :
Exhibition Catalogue Matégot, Angers, Musée Jean Lurçat et de la Tapisserie Contemporaine, 1990-1991
