Blowing in all directions
Aubusson tapestry woven by the Atelier Tabard.nWith his bolduc.n1962-1963.
With its authenticity label (bolduc).
1962-1963.
The work of Lurçat was immense: nevertheless, it was his role in the renewal of the art of tapestry that earned him a place in posterity. As early as 1917, he began with canvases (needlepoint on canvas), then, in the 1920s and 1930s, he worked with Marie Cuttoli. His first collaboration with the Gobelins dates from 1937, when he also discovered the Apocalypse tapestry series from Angers—an encounter that definitively led him to devote himself to tapestry. He tackled technical questions first with François Tabard, and then, when he installed himself in Aubusson during the war, he defined his system: large stitches (gros point), counted tones (tons comptés), and drawn Cartoons (cartons dessinés) that were numbered (numérotés).
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—then also through his role as an tireless promoter of the medium throughout 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.
Spectacular Cartoon (27 m²!) and exceptional private commission intended for a particular setting (the entrance hall of a residence) from the last years of Lurçat, during which he brought together a teeming profusion of his usual motifs: suns, stars, butterflies, but also, more rarely, turtles, cats,… The correspondence between the artist and his client bears witness to his availability (at a time when Lurçat, at the height of his fame, was constantly being approached, and when he devoted himself to the “Chant du Monde”), and to the richness of his reflection—set out in reasoned form—in response to the commission: the self-proclaimed “doctor of wool textiles” recommended the yellow ground (and rejected black, “too solemn for a hall inhabited by such a very young household”), “the wall covered, side by side… ” a royal solution “in the great tradition of tapestry,”… As we see, the client found nothing to object to in these recommendations.
Provenance :
Private collection, Lyon (a copy of the correspondence between Lurçat, the workshops Tabard, and the client will be provided to the purchaser).
Bibliography:
Cat. Expo. Jean Lurçat, Tapisseries nouvelles, Maison de la pensée Française, 1956
Cat. Expo. Lurçat, 10ans après, Musée Art moderne of the city of Paris, 1976
Cat. Expo. Les domaines de Jean Lurçat, Angers, Musée Jean Lurçat et de la tapisserie contemporaine, 1986
Cat. Expo. L’homme et ses lumières, Angers, Musée Jean Lurçat and of contemporary tapestry, 1992
Colloque Jean Lurçat et la renaissance de la tapisserie à Aubusson, Aubusson, Musée départemental de la Tapisserie, 1992
Exhibition cat. Jean Lurçat, Donation Simone Lurçat, Académie des Beaux-Arts, 2004
Jean Lurçat, le chant du Monde, Angers, 2007
Gérard Denizeau, Jean Lurçat, Liénart, 2013
