94
61
Louis le Brocquy HRHA (b.1916)
Travellers (1948)
Aubusson Tapestry, 178 x 99 cm, (70 x 39”)
Signed in weave of tapestry. Atelier Tabard Fréres & Soeurs, Aubusson with title “Irish Tinkers” & Ref. No. 1058 label verso.
Provenance: Purchased atThe Dawson Gallery c.1966 and given to the current owner as a birthday present in the early 1970’s.
Exhibited:
Recent Tapestries
Arts Council , London 1950;
Louis le Brocquy
:
A Family and other new works
Gimpel Fils 1951;
Louis le Brocquy
Exhibition Waddington Galleries Dublin 1951;
Recent Paintings and Tapestries by Louis le Brocquy
Gimpel Fils London 1955; and
Seven Tapestries 1948 - 1955 by Louis le Brocquy
The Dawson Gallery Nov 1966 and the The Ulster Museum Dec 1966 /
Jan 1967
Literature:
Brave Ventures
by Neville Wallis The Observer 29.1.1950;
The Art of Tapestry
by Mary Wallace, Far and Wide Feb 1950;
Tapisseries et Peintures de Louis le Brocquy
by James White, La Revue Francaise May 1965;w
Seven Tapestries by Louis le Brocquy
by James White, Dawson Gallery Dublin 1966 ;
Louis le Brocquy
by Dorothy Walker, Ward River Press Dublin 1981 Illustrated p.95;
Louis le Brocquy - Aubusson Tapestries
Taylor Galleries, Dublin 2000; and
The Hunter Gatherer
IMMA 2005 Illustrated p.62
In 1948, Edinburgh Tapestry Weavers under the patronage of the then Marquis of Bute, invited a number of painters living in London
to design tapestries.The artists included Stanley Spencer, Jankel Alder, Graham Sutherland and Louis le Brocquy who later continued
his work in this medium with the Tabard workshop at Aubusson in France. His first tapestry continued his preoccupation with the
travelling people :
Travellers 1948
was exhibited originally by the Arts Council in London in 1950. It depicts a woman and a young
child with an old faun-like figure of a man : the delineation of the figures strongly infleunced by Picasso but the weaving of the tap-
estry with its overall surface of leaves and shadow patterns is much indebted to Jean Lurcat, so that an intriguing cross fertilisation of
Picasso/Lurcat here takes place in the forms of an Irish travelling family.
Although critically acclaimed in 1950 it was not until the exhibition at The Dawson Gallery in 1966 that this and the other tapestries
from the Eden series were eagerly bought by the top collectors of the day. Versions of this original early tapestry
Travellers
which
illustrates the artists original vision,colour wise,have rarely come on the market in the last 20/30 years.
We acknowledge the research of the late Dorothy Walker whose writings formed the basis of this catalogue entry.
€80,000 - 100,000
