Maurice SAVIN

Versatile artist (engraver, medallist, ceramist, fresco painter…), Savin was called upon during the war by Guillaume Janneau, who admired the timeless and realistic monumentality of his aesthetic (and whom he suspected would have no need of transposition to suit the Tapestry), to design Cartoons for the National Manufactories: “the pleasures and rural labours” (4 cartoons), and then “the 12 months of the year” were created simultaneously with his work for the Compagnie des Arts Français. The influence of the technical aspects of medieval tapestry was very strong in the artist’s work: attentive to natural dyes in a reduced range, to simple forms enabled by the technique of the gros point,… He was one of the most represented artists at the seminal exhibition of 1946, with 7 pieces (only Lurçat, Saint-Saëns and Gromaire had more). “The Harvest” is contemporary with the cartoon designed for the Gobelins: “The Picking of Apples”, derived from the hanging on “the pleasures and rural labours.” It shows the same characteristics typical of the artist: a limited but vivid chromatic range, simplified and monumental forms, the density of the composition, and a rustic flavour straight from medieval tapestry. Bibliography: Cat. Expo. La tapisserie française du Moyen-âge à nos jours, Paris, Musée d’Art moderne, 1946 Cat. Expo. Le Mobilier National et les Manufactures Nationales sous la IVe République, Beauvais, Galerie nationale de la Tapisserie, 1997 Cat. Expo. La Manufacture des Gobelins dans la 1^weaver mid-20th century, Beauvais, National Gallery of Tapestry, 1999