Radical Sheet

JEAN LURÇAT, THE ARTIST WHO SINGLE-HANDEDLY SAVED THE GLORIOUS TRADITION OF FRENCH TAPESTRY FROM OBLIVION, IS FINALLY GETTING HIS DUE.

- Catherine Hong

In the 1940s and ’50s, when the great French weavers Gobelins and Aubusson were reduced to producing tired imitations of lady-in-a-swing paintings—using as many as 14,000 different colors, and all at outrageous cost—Jean Lurçat, the father of modern tapestry, tried something simple but different: He infused his tapestries with life. “The art had died,” he said, “killed by consumption, insipidness, lymphatism, and inversion.”

By contrast, Lurçat’s designs are alive with flora, fauna (both real and imaginary), the sun and stars, colors often in stark contrast with one another—and optimism. He depicted the Earth and the cosmos in their mysterious, powerful glory. “For lovers of modern tapestry, there is no one who compares,” says Lizzie Deshayes, the creative director of London-based wallpaper company Fromental. “Lurçat rescued tapestry from a long period of decline and made it compelling again. His work was absolutely extraordinary.”