Once upon a time there was Earth, Water, Fire and Air. We know of Jean Lurçat the impressive tapestries of a weaver of dreams unrivaled in the history of art... But let's go further and unwind this precious Ariadne's thread until we discover who this artist with golden hands really was , this plural genius to whom no art could resist. Painter, engraver, designer, illustrator, decorator and... ceramist, perhaps one of the greatest of the last century. Nearly sixty years after his death, the Hyacinthe Rigaud Art Museum in Perpignan paints a captivating portrait of this revolutionary artist, going beyond his gift for painting and his love for monumental settings to glimpse the paradoxes that surround an artistic personality, marked by the two world wars. When the world darkens, when wars obscure visions, Jean Lurçat responds with a lively and ultra-colorful palette, is interested in objects and materials, plays on contrasts to better oppose them, and invent a new universal language, guided by the strength it draws from the beauty of a forgotten world. The four vital elements of the planet, the very ones which are inherent in the ceramic manufacturing process, become a real mantra, for designing your own repertoire of works in earthenware and decorated terracotta. This furiously free exhibition reveals to us in a powerful scenography worthy of its most beautiful settings all the richness and diversity of the artist's production, including the hundred ceramic vases from the Sant Vicens workshops, made here not far from Perpignan, will be the keystone to solving the enigma that bears his name. His paintings and tapestries respond with their colors and patterns to the artist's breathtaking ceramics, themselves nourished by his encounters with the world of entertainment and the artistic avant-garde. The Hyacinthe Rigaud museum thus allows us, through a journey rich in more than 200 works by Jean Lurçat, to enter into the intimacy of a singular aesthetic universe, with a pioneering discourse. His works, here placed in dialogue with the ceramics of Maillol, Matisse, Picasso, Dufy, or Miró, remind us of the essential milestone they played in the democratization of the arts. Gradually, the artist slides from the abstract paintings of emerging cubism towards simplified and universal motifs: a radiant sun, a sleeping crescent moon, a valiant rooster or flowers in full rebirth until shaping a total work of art. Humanist and optimistic, Jean Lurçat looks at the world as a whole in balance, drawing on its elements to bring about the hope of tomorrow.

HYACINTHE RIGAUD ART MUSEUM
Until December 29, 2024
21 rue Mailly
66000 Perpignan
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