Aubusson tapestry based on the original composition by Jean Picart le Doux, signed lower right.
Born in Paris on 31 January 1902 into a family of artists - his father was the painter Charles Picart le Doux - he studied at the Lycée Condorcet and had to learn a trade at the age of sixteen. The young Picart le Doux initially turned to bookbinding and typographic techniques, while taking drawing classes in the evenings. After working for a time in a bank and then for the publisher Albin Michel, he was technical director at the art publisher Jeanne Walter from 1925 to 1931.
Devoting himself to graphic art, he made a name for himself in the world of advertising and illustration. In 1942 he was awarded the Grand Prix for Theatre Posters, having previously exhibited his first works at the Billiet-Worms gallery and at the 1937 Paris International Exhibition.
Meeting Jean Lurçat in 1939 radically changed his artistic direction. Lurçat's efforts to gain recognition for tapestry as an autonomous artistic genre at a time when "woven paintings" (Braque, Picasso, Rouault, Dufy, etc.) dominated the scene determined a whole generation of artists. Picart le Doux, Saint-Saëns, Lagrange and Wogensky all played their part in this revival, which was based on an in-depth study of smoothing techniques, the deliberate limitation of the palette to around thirty shades (there were previously more than 14,000) and a return to a robust stitch (5 threads per centimetre instead of 10). This movement, stimulated by the founding in 1947 of the Association des peintres cartonniers de tapisserie, of which Picart le Doux became vice-president, was organised around Lurçat and Denise Majorelle, who opened the La Demeure gallery in Paris in 1950, devoted entirely to tapestry. On the strength of this patronage, Picart le Doux embarked on a career as a cardboard painter, after a stay in Aubusson with a master weaver who taught him the basse lisse technique. Towards the end of his career (1961-1971), he became an advocate of this return to old techniques as part of his teaching at the Ecole des Arts Décoratifs in Paris.
Our company guarantees the sale of a tapestry with an approved invoice and appraisal, well cleaned and in good condition with its fixing system. If necessary, we will tell you what work has been done. All our tapestries can be shown to you at your home in France and neighbouring countries before you make your final decision.
