Jean Lurçat

Lurçat’s work is immense: nevertheless, it is his role in the renovation of the art of tapestry that earned him a lasting place in posterity. 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 of Angers, which definitively led him to devote himself to tapestry. He tackled technical questions first with François Tabard, and then, on the occasion of his installation in Aubusson during the war, he defined his system: large point, counted tones, and numbered drawn Cartoons. A gigantic production then began (more than 1,000 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 collaboration with the gallery La Demeure and Denise Majorel, and then through his role as an tireless promoter of the medium across the world. His woven work bears witness to an art of the image-maker specifically decorative, with a highly personal, symbolic iconography that is cosmogonic (sun, planets, zodiac, the four elements…), stylized vegetal motifs, and animal subjects (goats, cocks, butterflies, chimeras…) that stand out against a background without perspective (deliberately distant from painting), and, in his most ambitious Cartoons, intended to share a vision that is at once poetic (he sometimes even embellishes these tapestries with quotations) and philosophical (the major themes were already addressed during the war: liberty, resistance, fraternity, truth…). The culminating point of this will be the “Chant du Monde” (Musée Jean Lurçat, former Saint-Jean hospital, Angers), left unfinished at his death. If there is a motif that runs through Lurçat’s oeuvre, it is that of the cock, endlessly varied. It also allows for unusual pairings, syntheses (coqthon, not coq et thon) between elements, kingdoms, and natural environments…. Bibliographie : 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, 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