Jean Lurçat started his artistic career in Paris in 1912 where he frequented the circles of Picasso and Marcoussis. Influenced by Cubism and as a founder of the art review ‘Les Feuilles de Mai’, in which essays of painting doctrine were published, he spoke up for the avant-garde movement. A trip to Berlin and Munich in 1920 turned Lurçat’s eye to Expressionism. His extensive travels, to Spain in 1923 and to the Middle East, North Africa and the Sahara from 1924 to 1929, left another important and lasting influence on his painted work. In 1937, Lurçat turned his interest in tapestry-making into a professional business after signing contracts with the Beauvais weaving factories. He became world-renowned as an innovator of the medium.
An important and successful painter of the École de Paris, he single-handedly revived tapestry-making as an art form during the 1930s. At the same time, Lurçat's artistic eye turned to a variety of other media, including engraving, book illustration and - most notably - ceramics. During the 1950s, Lurçat worked intensively at Firmin Bauby's ceramics studio, Mas Sant-Vicens, in the southern French city of Perpignan. His collaboration with the Saint-Vicens workshop gave it an international dimension, and later other artists, such as Picard le Doux and Marc Saint-Saëns, began working there.
Imaginary and mythological sea and woodland creatures, as well as foliage, wind their way in thickly applied, saturated colours overlaid with brilliant glaze. Figures plucked from the Apocalypse and the Zodiac demonstrate Lurçat's fondness for symbolism and poetry, which formed the core of his artistic expression. Thus, a plate, bowl, jug, or tile becomes an object of beauty and exquisiteness. Lurçat's poetry ultimately derives from the excellence of the Art Nouveau style. In his unsurpassed love for all things rural, Lurçat was particularly attached to the rooster and the owl. Respectively synonymous with sunrise and wisdom, both symbolise the awakening of the spirit.
Lurçat's ceramics proved popular and were shown in 1952 at the Maison de la Pensée française, Paris, in 1963 at the Hannover Museum in Hannover, in 1964 at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, in 1965 at the landmark exhibition Ceramiche Lurçat-Picasso at La Bussola Gallery in Turin, and in 2004 at the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris.
Public Collections
Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit
Musée des Beaux-Arts, Grenoble
Musée Nationale d’Art Moderne, Paris
Museum of Chicago
Museum of Modern Art, New York
National Gallery, Washington, D.C.
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia
Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam
Bibliography
G. DENIZEAU and S. LURÇAT, l’Oeuvre peint de Jean Lurçat. Catalogue Raisonné 1910-1965, Lausanne, 1998.
Solo Exhibitions
2024, Jean Lurçat, La Terre, le Feu, l'Eau, lAir, Musée Rigaud, Perpignan.
2020, Poetry in Motion, Whitford Fine Art, London.
2019, Poetry in Motion, Whitford Fine Art, London.
2918, Poetry in Motion, Whitford Fine Art, London.
2017, Poetry in Motion, Whitford Fine Art, London.
1964/63, Shows in Genova, Tel-Aviv, Annecy, Hannover, Zurich, Morocco. One-man show of his tapestries at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris.
1962/61, Retrospective Exhibition, Stiebel Gallery, Paris.
1960, One-man shows of tapestries in Cologne, Bremen, Lisbon.
1958, Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris.
1954, La Demeure, Paris.
1953, Gimpel Gallery, London; Musée Réattu, Arles.
1949 - 50, Shows in Locarno, Beirut and Zurich.
1948, Shows in England, Belgium, Switzerland and Czechoslovakia.
1946, Bignou Gallery, New York; Anglo-French Centre, London.
1944, Carré Gallery, Paris; Paintings by Jean Lurçat, Bignou Gallery, New York.
1942/41, Dufy and Lurçat, Bignou Gallery, New York.
1939, Bignou Gallery, New York; Petit Palais, Paris.
1936, Reid Gallery, London; Lefevre, Paris; Jeanne Bucher Gallery, Paris.
1934, Museum of Modern Western Art, Moscow and Kiev.
1931, Vignon Gallery, Paris; Berlin and Philadelphia.
1925, Georges Petit Gallery, Paris; Jeanne Bucher Gallery, Paris.
1922, Galerie Povolotsky, Paris; Vildrac Gallery, Paris.
1916, Tanner Gallery, Zurich.