Two paintings by Lurçat acquired by Quimper

23/2/24 - Acquisitions - Quimper, Musée des Beaux-Arts - In addition to the mask by René Iché and the gouache by Max Jacob (see news item of 11/2/24), two paintings by Jean Lurçat (ill. 1 and 2) have recently been added to the 20th-century collection of the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Quimper. Acquired from the Galerie Saint-Martin in Paris, they are the first two works by the artist to join Quimper’s collections. Sold twice on the Paris art market, first at the Palais Galliera in April 1974 and then by Beaussant-Lefèvre in December 2014, the two compositions come from the collection of Marie Cuttoli, a key figure in Lurçat’s career and the first link between the artist and the Aubusson factory. For further details about the collector, her Myrbor gallery and her major role in the revival of tapestry, we refer you to the catalogue of the exhibition devoted to her at the Musée départemental de la tapisserie in Aubusson, from 21 June to 15 November 2010, Marie Cuttoli, Myrbor et l’invention de la tapisserie moderne. Note that a portrait of the collector by Lurçat, a large canvas dated 1929, is known and held in a private collection.

1. Jean Lurçat (1892-1966)
Skiffs and masts
Oil on panel - 35.5 x 24 cm
Quimper, Musée des Beaux-Arts
Photo: Bernard Galéron/ADAGP

See the image in its page

If the immense posterity of Lurçat’s tapestries tended to eclipse his pictorial, graphic and ceramic productions, the major monographic exhibition devoted to him at the Mobilier national in 2016 to mark the fiftieth anniversary of his death (see article) - complemented by the remarkable focused exhibition presented by the Fondation Jean et Simone Lurçat and the Académie des beaux-arts in 2021 (see article) - served as a reminder of the importance of his protean body of work. The first few rooms of the exhibition brought together some thirty paintings and a handful of gouaches by the artist, underlining the fact that Lurçat was first and foremost a painter, and that…