Maurice SAVIN

Savin was a multi-talented artist expressing himself in a whole range of media (engraver, metal engraver, ceramicist, mural painter …). He was contacted during the war by Guillaume Janneau, an admirer of both the monumental timelessness and the realism of his aethetic (which he recognised as being immediately applicable to the constraints of tapestry design), to design cartoons for the Manufactures Nationales : “les plaisirs et les travaux champêtres” (4 cartoons), then the “12 months of the year” were produced at the same time as his work for the Compagnie des Arts Français. The influence of the techniques of mediaeval tapestry is immediately recognisable in his work which shows attention to the use of natural dyes in a limited palette, simple shapes suited to working with gros point, … He was one of the best represented artists at the seminal exhibition of 1946, with 7 pieces on show (only Lurçat, Saint-Saens and Gromaire had more).

‘The Oxen’, created in 1945, is further evidence of the rural-bucolic theme that resonated with the Vichy regime’s concerns (as seen in the tapestries ‘les plaisirs et les travaux champêtres’ (Rural Pleasures and Labours). Savin would later revisit the cart (though in more natural colours) in “Juin, la fenaison” (June, Haymaking), part of the tapestry series “Les 12 mois de l’année” (The 12 Months of the Year), woven at the Gobelins between 1947 and 1950. A copy of our design was featured in the 1946 exhibition.

Bibliography :
Exhibition catalogue La tapisserie française du Moyen-âge à nos jours, Paris, Musée d’art moderne, 1946
Exhibition catalogue Le Mobilier National et les Manufactures Nationales sous la IVe République, Beauvais, Galerie nationale de la Tapisserie, 1997
Exhibition catalogue La Manufacture des Gobelins dans la 1 ère moitié du XXe siècle, Beauvais, Galerie nationale de la Tapisserie, 1999