![[previous page]](images/previous.gif) The William Fifield Collection
Jean Lurçat
Detail from Lurçat's tapestry L'Esprit
de France
(Spirit of France), 1943
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In the collection of
the California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco
Courtesy of the Fine
Arts Museums of San Francisco
(Close-up of the tapestry
below)
§ § § §
Lurçat began his artistic career
as a Surrealist painter. Seeing the Apocalypse tapestry suite in 1937 changed his
life. Two years later, at the age of 47, he decided to devote himself primarily to
tapestry.
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| Jean Lurçat, interviewed by
William Fifield WF:What
has tapestry brought you?
JL: Joy. I was a
Surrealist painter, though I never joined the movement. But my paintings were desolate,
despairing, bleak—showing solitude, hopelessness. I did not want it so, but the war
had graven a track into my hand. Oil painting is too suave; not enough resistance.
The ruggedness of wool gave me joy—liberation. |
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From In Search of
Genius by William Fifield
William Morrow & Company, 1982, page 265
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Available in hardcover now
Coming in a digital format from
Times Two this year
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