The starfish shell
Aubusson tapestry woven by the Berthaut workshop. With its bolduc Signed by the artist. 1959. Jean Picart le Doux was one of the great driving forces behind the revival of tapestry. His beginnings in the field dated back to 1943: he then produced cartoons for the ocean liner “la Marseillaise”. Close to Lurçat, whom he married his theories to (limited tones, Numbered cartoons,…), he was a founding member of the A.P.C.T. (Association des Peintres-cartonniers de Tapisserie), and soon became a professor at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts décoratifs. The State commissioned him to produce numerous cartoons Tissé, mostly in Aubusson, and for some at the Gobelins: the most spectacular were made for the University of Caen, the Théâtre du Mans, the ocean liner France, or the Préfecture de la Creuse,…. If Picart le Doux’s conceptions were close to those of Lurçat, so were his sources of inspiration and themes, too, but in a more decorative than symbolic register, where the astres (the sun, the moon, the stars…), the elements and nature (wheat, the vine, fish, birds…), humankind, texts,…. Our tapestry takes the left-hand section of a cartoon of the same title dated 1959. While marine evocations appeared from the earliest days of Picart le Doux in tapestry, he soon evolved toward less allegorical, more realistic representations. Bibliography : Marthe Belle-Joufray, Jean Picart le Doux, Publications filmées d’art et d’histoire, 1966 Maurice Bruzeau, Jean Picart le Doux, Murs de soleil, Editions Cercle d’art, 1972, n°91 Cat. Exp. Jean Picart le Doux, tapisseries, Musée de Saint-Denis, 1976 Cat. Exp. Jean Picart le Doux, Boulogne sur Mer, Bibliothèque municipale, 1978, n°17 Cat. Exp. Jean Picart le Doux, Paris,Musée de la Poste, 1980 Cat. Exp. Jean Picart le Doux, Abbaye Saint Jean d’Orbestier, 1992, reproduite
