CONTEMPORARY TAPESTRY LURCAT | in Paris | GalerieJabert

CONTEMPORARY TAPESTRY LURCAT

Jean Lurçat:

Cardboard painter (1892-1966)

A tireless creator, Lurçat is a multifaceted artist: painter, poet, illustrator, he is passionate about ceramic and tapestry techniques, of which he is the most illustrious representative of the 20th century.

Committed to his time, and passionately curious about the world, Jean Lurçat was born in the Vosges in Bruyères, where Lucien, the postmaster, and Charlotte gave birth to descendants of creators: Jean the painter and André the architect.

Jean Lurçat trained in the studio of Victor Prouvé, leader of the École de Nancy, then came to immerse himself in the artistic and intellectual effervescence of Paris, when he was twenty years old. He completed his training on the fringes of the official circuits, founded with friends the magazine Les feuilles de mai, and then decided to embark on a career as a fresco painter, but the project came to a halt because of the war. Jean Lurçat, a volunteer, suffers the terrible fate of infantrymen tossed about in the turmoil: it will mark him for life.

A Lurçat, impatient and unmoved, expresses himself during the decade of the twenties. He made a name for himself through his painting, in France and the United States. An internationally renowned painter, he was one of the most significant artists of his time, while remaining on the fringe of contemporary aesthetic trends. He collaborated with Pierre Chareau, architect-decorator known through his friends Jean and Annie Dalsace, the sponsors of the iconic glass house on rue Saint-Guillaume. He also produces large canvases embroidered by his wife and gives carpet projects.

The collector Marie Cuttoli had tapestries woven in Aubusson based on works by Lurçat and other artists in her collection, and this experience paved the way for the rebirth of tapestry through her aesthetic ambition. At the same time, at the National Manufactures, a salon of the Illusions of Icarus is woven; intended for the French embassy in the USSR, it will never be set up because of the war.

Lurçat, at this time, abandons easel painting. The decisive step is taken when he appropriates the technique of the tapestry of heddle and gets involved in the technique of the language of wool. The Apocalypse of Angers that he discovered in 1938 confirms his intuition. He perceives the immense potential and the originality of this art. Stitch size, limited range and numbered cardboard, he will not cease to advocate the advantages of a method which returns to the fundamentals of the technique of the Middle Ages, a period which he considers to be that of the greatest masterpieces of tapestry. In order to support the Aubusson Manufactures, heavily affected by the Great Depression and in a state of creative stagnation, the administrator of the Manufactures nationales, Guillaume Jeanneau, imagined entrusting a major commission to contemporary artists.