Description

Origin : France-Aubusson

Period : 17th century

Provenance : Private collection

Composition : Wool and silk

Dimensions : 104W x 145 H

Robert Wogensky - COMME LE TEMPS - Ex N°1/6

Wogensky decided to become a painter after seeing Picasso's "Guernica" at the 1937 Universal Exhibition. He enrolled at the Grande Chaumière academy where he met Jean Lurçat in 1939, who was looking for a painter to help him in his great undertaking to renovate tapestry. Wogensky followed Lurçat, becoming his assistant and model for one of the first large tapestries commissioned from Lurçat, "Les vendanges". Lurçat gave more and more freedom to his particularly gifted pupil: "Do as you feel and not as I feel", he told him at the time.

During the war, their friendship was strengthened by their common struggle, and it was together that they printed and distributed tacts during this time of resistance. He rubbed shoulders with a circle of Resistance artists. And when Lurçat moved to the Towers of St Laurent, Wogensky continued his work as an assistant. But he went on to develop his own work, while remaining closely associated with his master and friend. He moved towards an abstract style, with a lively and expressive palette. His compositions were inspired by the natural forces he felt so deeply. His expressionist compositions evoke journeys through the Milky Way.

Denise Majorel was an important supporter of Wogensky's work, exhibiting it on several occasions in her gallery "La Demeure".

The themes he tackled made reference to nature: Waters, Constellations, Fires, Birds. Birds are a recurring theme in his work as a cartonnier: Plein ciel, Les Migrateurs, Sillages, Tire d'Ailes...

Initially treated in a figurative way, the birds are purified and melt into infinite space. Unlike other cartoonist painters, once Wogensky "entered tapestry", he did not abandon the painting of his beginnings, and his work as a painter on line and trajectory is reflected in his tapestry cartoons.

The technical research that the artist undertook with Camille Legoueix's workshop in Aubusson in the 1970s resulted in combinations of different sizes of stitch and colour in the same tapestry, giving dynamic movement to the forms. It was the birth of a more flexible art form.