Jean Lurçat

Born July 1, 1892, in Bruyères, Vosges; died Jan. 6, 1966, in Saint-Paul-de-Vanse, Maritime Alps. French painter and tapestry designer instrumental in initiating the French revival of weaving tapestries. Brother of A. Lurçat.

Lurçat was basically a self-taught artist. Basing his work both on the traditions of the French gobelins and contemporary styles of decorative art, he tried to create impassioned and fantastic symbolic images (The Song of the World, 1957-63, in the Town Hall of the city of Angers). Lurçat’s tapestries, with their contrasts of bright pure colors and dark somber colors, their fractured forms, and their brittle vibrating contours, combine human figures, fantastic animal and plant forms, inscriptions, and heraldic emblems to create varied associations. The designer’s best tapestries were made at a factory in Aubusson. Lurçat also did book illustrations, ceramics, and theater design.