Composition
An Aubusson tapestry woven by the Atelier Pinton.
With its bolduc, n°1/1.
1974.
Jean Bazaine, like many of his contemporaries, always pursued an intense activity linked to mural art, in monumental-scale works. Though he was mainly known as a designer of stained-glass windows or mosaics, he also created tapestry Cartoons, beginning in the late 1930s. These works formed part of a revival of sacred art, in which Bazaine—especially after the war—was to be one of the main protagonists.
Nevertheless, Bazaine's creations were not intended solely for religious buildings. His mastery of mural art was expressed in mosaic commissions for the UNESCO building or the Maison de la Radio, but also in tapestries woven in the National Manufactories, or in Aubusson, for the Palace of Justice in Lille, or the Town Hall in Strasbourg. It was in this context that, in the early 1970s, the Fédération Française du Bâtiment commissioned an artist—well known, almost official (Grand Prix National des Arts in 64, exhibition at the Musée National d'Art moderne in 1965)—who responded with our vast rhythmic and lyrical composition, chromatically homogeneous: unfortunately, the bolduc, erased, deprives us of the title of the work, in an artist who did not want to be abstract.
Provenance: Headquarters of the Fédération Française du Bâtiment
