Whitford Fine Art are proud to present a selection of ceramic works by one of the most innovative and versatile French artists of the 20th century: Jean Lurçat (1892-1966).
Although he is best known for his seminal work in the revival of the art of tapestry weaving during the 1930s, Lurçat was an important painter of the School of Paris whose oeuvre encompassed not only tapestry, but painting, book illustration, lithography, jewellery and - most notably - ceramics.
Like many artists of the period seeking to expand their repertoires beyond painting, such as Fernand Leger, Marc Chagall, Édouard Pignon and Pablo Picasso, Lurçat headed to the South of France to explore the art of ceramics. He settled on the workshop of Firmin Bauby in Mas Sant-Vicens, Perpignan, after Bauby visited him at his home in Saint-Céré in 1951 to ask if Lurçat would be interested in working together. Lurçat quickly became enamoured with the medium and would visit the workshop at least twice a year, every year, from the early 1950s onwards until his death in 1966.
Lurçat’s designs included dishes, chargers, vases, and jugs, produced as unique pieces or in limited editions. Lurçat would experiment continually during in his fertile period of artistic output at the Mas Sant-Vicens workshop, often reprising the biomorphic, semi-abstract motifs seen throughout his artistic career in his paintings, works on paper and tapestries.
There is a wonderful sense of movement to Lurçat’s designs of the cosmos, flora, fauna, and minor spirits and deities such as nymphs, fauns and dryads. He excels at capturing the shifting, secretive and mischievous spirit of his subject matter. The resulting designs demonstrate Lurçat’s fondness for symbolism and poetry which formed the core of his artistic expression.
In recent years, Whitford Fine Art has held many successful exhibitions of Lurçat’s work, successfully introducing his ceramics to a wider international audience, with numerous sales to notable private and corporate collections worldwide.
Lurçat’s work is held in museums worldwide, including: Art Institute of Chicago; Detroit
Museum of Fine Arts; Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris; Museum of Modern Art, New York; National Gallery, Washington DC, Philadelphia Museum of Art; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam.
