Jean Lurçat

Lurçat’s body of work is immense: however, it is his role in the renewal of the art of tapestry that earned him lasting renown. As early as 1917, he began with works on canvas, then, in the 1920s and 1930s, he worked with Marie Cuttoli. His first collaboration with the Gobelins dates from 1937, when he simultaneously discovered the “Apocalypse” tapestry cycle from Angers, which definitively prompted him to devote himself to tapestry. He first tackled technical questions with François Tabard, and then, on the occasion of his installation in Aubusson during the war, he defined his system: gros point, counted tones, and numbered drawn Cartoons. A gigantic production then began (more than 1000 Cartoons), amplified by his desire to involve his painter friends, the creation of the A.P.C.T. (Association des Peintres-Cartonniers de Tapisserie) and his collaboration with the gallery La Demeure and Denise Majorel, and, finally, through his role as an tireless propagator of the medium throughout the world. His Woven work bears witness to an imagier’s art specifically decorative in character: in a highly personal, symbolic iconography—cosmogonic (sun, planets, zodiac, the 4 elements…), stylized vegetal forms, animals (goats, cocks, butterflies, chimeras…)—all set against a background without perspective (deliberately kept at a distance from painting), and, in his most ambitious Cartoons, intended to share a vision that is at once poetic (he sometimes interweaves these tapestries with quotations) and philosophical (the major themes were addressed already during the war: freedom, resistance, fraternity, truth…). Its culminating point would be the “Chant du Monde” ( Musée Jean Lurçat, former Saint-Jean hospital, Angers), left unfinished at his death. “Le Sultan” is an inverted reprise of “Fanfares”, with detailed modifications in the cock’s plumage. If the cock is a leitmotiv in Lurçat, it can take on different meanings: here, on a grand scale (3.5 m²) and in glory, it bears witness to the Victory of 1945 (note the tricolour allusions); it is a festive cock, unfurled amid an exuberant profusion of coloured fields.
Bibliography : Tapisseries de Jean Lurçat 1939-1957, Pierre Vorms Editeur, 1957 Cat. Expo. Lurçat, 10 ans après, 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 Cat. Expo. Dialogues avec Lurçat, Musées de Basse-Normandie, 1992 Cat. Expo. Jean Lurçat, Donation Simone Lurçat, Académie des Beaux-Arts, 2004 Gérard Denizeau, Jean Lurçat, Liénart, 2013 Cat. Expo. Jean Lurçat au seul bruit du soleil, Paris, galerie des Gobelins, 2016