Jean Lurçat

The work of Lurçat is immense: nevertheless, it is his role in the renovation of the art of tapestry that has earned him a place in posterity. As early as 1917, he began with canvas-based works, and then, in the 1920s and 1930s, he worked with Marie Cuttoli. His first collaboration with the Gobelins dates from 1937, when he also discovered, at the same time, the “Apocalypse” tapestry set from Angers—an encounter that definitely prompted him to devote himself to tapestry. He first approached technical questions with François Tabard, and then, during his installation in Aubusson during the war, he defined his system: large stitch, counted tones, drawn and Numbered Cartoons. A huge production then began (more than 1,000 cartoons), amplified by his determination to bring along his painter friends, the creation of the A.P.C.T. (Association des Peintres-Cartonniers de Tapisserie), and collaboration with the gallery La Demeure and Denise Majorel, and then by his role as an indefatigable promoter of the medium throughout the world. His Woven work bears witness to an art of the imagier that is specifically decorative, with a highly personal, symbolic iconography—cosmogonic (sun, planets, zodiac, the 4 elements…), stylized vegetal forms, and animals (goats, cocks, butterflies, chimeras…)—set against a background without perspective (deliberately distanced from painting). Intended, in his most ambitious Cartoons, to share a vision that is at once poetic (he sometimes even adorns these tapestries with quotations) and philosophical (the major themes were addressed as early as the war: freedom, resistance, fraternity, truth…). The culmination of this effort was the “Chant du Monde” ( Musée Jean Lurçat, former Saint-Jean hospital, Angers), left unfinished at his death. His trip to Brazil in 1954 was a decisive source of inspiration for Lurçat: Amazonian flora and fauna (notably butterflies, a recurring theme) then appeared again and again: “What interests me about the butterfly, …, is the extraordinary invention constituted by the interlacing of forms, the sparkling of the colors, this gratuitousness of coloration…” (Claude faux, Lurçat à haute voix, 1962, p.151). The differences between Cartoons are sometimes marginal—for example, between our “Vol” Woven by Tabard, and “Vera Cruz,” a little larger, Woven by Simone André. Bibliography : Tapisseries de Jean Lurçat 1939-1957, Pierre Vorms Editeur, 1957 Cat.Expo. Jean Lurçat, Nice, Musée des Ponchettes, 1968 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, Denise Majorel, une vie pour la tapisserie, Aubusson, Musée départemental de la tapisserie Gérard Denizeau, Jean Lurçat, Liénart, 2013 Cat. Expo. Jean Lurçat, Meister der französischen Moderne, Halle, Kunsthalle, 2016 Cat. Expo. Jean Lurçat au seul bruit du soleil, Paris, galerie des Gobelins, 2016 Cat. Expo. Jean Lurçat, la terre, le feu, l’eau, l’air, Perpignan, Musée d’art Hyacinthe Rigaud, 2024