Jean Lurçat

L'Œuvre de Lurçat is immense: however, it was his role in the renewal of the art of tapestry that earned him a lasting place in history. 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, at a time when he discovered simultaneously the Angers Apocalypse tapestry—an encounter that definitively encouraged him to devote himself to tapestry. He approached technical questions first with François Tabard, then, during the installation of his workshop at Aubusson during the war, he defined his system: gros point, tons comptés, cartons dessinés numérotés. An enormous output then began (more than 1000 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 his collaboration with the gallery La Demeure and Denise Majorel—then, through his role as an indefatigable promoter of the medium across the world. His woven work bears witness to a specifically decorative art of the imaginational artist, in a highly personal and symbolic iconography: cosmogonic (sun, planets, zodiac, the 4 elements…), stylized vegetal motifs, animals (goats, roosters, butterflies, chimeras…), stand out against a background without perspective (deliberately distanced from painting). Intended, in his most ambitious cartons, to share a vision that is both poetic (he also sometimes imbues these tapestries with quotations) and philosophical (the major themes were addressed from the war onward: freedom, resistance, fraternity, truth…).

An enormous output then began (more than 1000 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 his collaboration with the gallery La Demeure and Denise Majorel—then, through his role as an indefatigable promoter of the medium across the world.

His woven work bears witness to a specifically decorative artist-imaginer’s art, with a highly personal, symbolic and cosmogonic iconography (sun, planets, zodiac, the 4 elements…), stylized vegetal forms, and animals (goats, roosters, butterflies, chimeras…) set against a background with no perspective (deliberately distanced from painting). In his most ambitious Cartoons, it was intended to share both a poetic vision (he sometimes even intersperses these tapestries with quotations) and a philosophical one (the major themes were addressed from the war on: freedom, resistance, fraternity, truth…), culminating in the “Chant du Monde” (Musée Jean Lurçat, former Saint-Jean hospital, Angers), unfinished at his death.

Lurçat’s emblematic and synthetic work of inspiration: a war tapestry (if it dates from 1947, it constitutes a symbolic monument to the fallen, on a France-wide scale, itself illustrated, and adorned with a tricolour leaf); tapestry-poetry (a Resistance poem besides); armatory tapestry (a leitmotif). Five examples were woven, three of them in public collections, in Aubusson, Québec, and Moscow.

Bibliography:
Tapestries by Jean Lurçat 1939–1957, Pierre Vorms Editeur, 1957
Exhibition cat. Lurçat, 10 years later, Musée d’Art moderne de la ville de Paris, 1976
Exhibition cat. Les domaines de Jean Lurçat, Angers, Musée Jean Lurçat et de la tapisserie contemporaine, 1986
Colloquium Jean Lurçat and the renaissance of tapestry in Aubusson, Aubusson, Musée départemental de la Tapisserie, 1992
Cat. Expo. Jean Lurçat, The struggle and victory, centenary, Aubusson, Musée départemental de la Tapisserie, 1992, ill. p.57
Exhibition cat. Dialogues with Lurçat, Musées de Basse-Normandie, 1992
R. Guinot, Tapestry, Aubusson and Felletin, éditions Dessagne, 1992, ill.p.20-21
Exhibition cat. Jean Lurçat, Donation Simone Lurçat, Académie des Beaux-Arts, 2004
R. Guinot, Tapestry of Aubusson and Felletin, Lucien Souny, 2009, ill. p.92
G. Denizeau, Jean Lurçat, Liénart, 2013, ill. fig.114 p.111
M. Mathias, Lurçat-Aragon, shared poetry, Mémoires de la Société des sciences naturelles, historiques et archéologiques de la Creuse, tome 60, 2014-2015, p.439-444
Cat. Expo. Jean Lurçat au seul bruit du soleil, Paris, galerie des Gobelins, 2016, ill. fig.6 p.172