Maurice SAVIN

Versatile artist (engraver, medallist, ceramist, fresco painter…), during the war Savin was called upon by Guillaume Janneau, who admired the timeless and realistic monumentality of his aesthetic (and whom he suspected would require no transposition in order to suit the Tapestry) to design cartoons for the National Manufactories: «the pleasures and country labours» (4 cartoons), after which «the 12 months of the year» were created simultaneously with his work with the Compagnie des Arts Français. The influence of the technical aspects of medieval tapestry was very strong in the artist, who was attentive to natural dyestuffs in a reduced palette, to the simple forms enabled by the technique of the gros point,… He was one of the most widely represented artists at the seminal 1946 exhibition, with 7 works (only Lurçat, Saint-Saëns and Gromaire had more).

« The « bœufs » bears witness, still, in 1945, to the rural-bucolic vein that responded to the concerns of the Vichy regime (as does the hanging « les plaisirs et travaux champêtres »). Savin would then take up the frontal team (but in more natural colours) in « Juin, la fenaison », from the hanging « les 12 months of the year », woven at Gobelins between 1947 and 1950.
An example of our cartoon was included in the 1946 exhibition.

Bibliography:
Cat. Expo. La tapisserie française du Moyen-âge à our days, Paris, Musée d’Art moderne, 1946
Seven Centuries of French Tapestries, Word and Deed, 1946, ill.
Cat. Expo. Le Mobilier National et les Manufactures Nationales sous la IVe République, Beauvais, Galerie nationale de la Tapisserie, 1997
Cat. Expo. The Manufacture des Gobelins in the 1^weaver mid-20th century, Beauvais, National Gallery of Tapestry, 1999