Structure et lumière (structure and light)
Aubusson tapestry woven by the Pinton workshop.
With signed label, n°1/6.
1964.
Matégot, originally a decorator, then creator of artefacts and furniture (an activity he abandoned in 1959) met François Tabard in 1945 and gave him his first cartoons, first of all figurative then rapidly of abstract design in the 1950’s. He became a member of the A.P.C.T. (Association des Peintres Cartonniers de Tapisserie) in 1949, participated in many international exhibitions (Matégot, like Lurçat before him, was an untiring advocate of the art of tapestry) fulfilled numerous public commissions, sometimes of monumental proportions (“Rouen” 85m2 for the Préfecture of the Seine Maritime département, and also tapestries for Orly Airport, for the Maison de la Radio, for the IMF…) and designed no fewer than 629 cartoons up until the 1970’s. In 1990 the Matégot foundation for contemporary tapestry was inaugurated in Bethesda, U.S.A. Matégot is an artist, like Wogensky, Tourlière or Prassinos, who turns wool textiles resolutely towards the abstract: at first lyrical, geometric in the 70’s, exploiting various technical aspects of the loom : colour graduations, shading, irregularities…
« Structure et lumière » is a self-explanatory title : at this period Matégot’s tapestries are strongly contrasted, using effects of transparency as in stained glass windows (cf. “Piège de lumière”, “Shadows and light »,…). As for « structure » it refers both to his work as an interior designer whose function is to occupy space and organise it – even within the tapestry itself, despite its apparently haphazard lyricism.
Bibliography :
Madeleine Jarry, la Tapisserie art du XXe siècle, Office du Livre, 1974, ill. n°115
Exhibition catalogue, Matégot, Angers, Musée Jean Lurçat et de la Tapisserie Contemporaine, 1990-1991, ill. p.44
Patrick Favardin, Mathieu Matégot, Editions Norma, 2014, ill. p.335 pictured with the artist in front of his work at the 1990 exhibition.
