Lurcat.net is a tribute to Jean Lurcat (1892-1966), French Tapestry Designer and Painter.

Jean Lurcat was introduced to art by his parents and by Victor Prouve, the founder of the Ecole de Nancy. In October 1912 he went to Paris, where he put into practice Prouve’s ideas at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and later at the Academie Colarossi as a pupil of the engraver Bernard Naudin (1876-1946). In November 1912 Lurcat founded the review Les Feuilles de mai, which contained articles on art by Elie Faure and Antoine Bourdelle and his own essays on ‘the positive sense of life and art’. In 1914 he volunteered for the infantry; after being wounded, he was evacuated to his parents’ home in Sens. Watching his mother sewing inspired him to have her transpose his first tapestries, on canvas, based on his gouaches Little Green Girls (Berkeley, U. CA, A. Mus.) and Evening in Granada (Paris, priv. col.), which combine severe design with rich colour. In 1917 he held his first exhibition in Zurich, of paintings inspired by Cubism (in particular the work of Georges Braque) and by Matisse’s drawings. Several were subsequently produced as tapestries by the Hennebert workshops in Toulon (1920–24). Until 1931 Lurcat intermittently attempted to produce murals, but these works always disappointed him: for example the large mural decoration for the Bernheim family’s ch?teau in Villefix, near Paris (1922; destr.).