Jean-René Sautour-Gaillard

Born in 1946 in Paris, the cartonnier painter Jean-René Sautour-Gaillard, who recently passed away in 2016, has held a special place in the world of tapestry.

He began his career with Robert Wogensky, one of Aubusson's great cardboard makers. He trained at Ensaama and Ensaama then taught there in the early 1970s.

In 1971, he created his first tapestry model, Métamorphose. From the outset, his vision of the tapestry is very precise: “The fact of entrusting the realization of the weaving to other hands seems to give the work a new force. It is born a second time, stronger and deeper. From my first attempts, I chose to make a work that would not be made of images, but conceived in the orchestration of an architecture of colors. "

Little by little, he sets up his “style”: a studied use of colors and the evocation of the textile medium through trompe-l'oeil collages. His work is marked by Lyrical Abstraction, long after the end of this movement. These great gestures can be found in the 267 m2 of the Pour un certain ideal wall hanging, a suite of 17 tapestries. He will create more than 250 models, models and tapestry cartons, until 2002.

Jean-René Sautour-Gaillard knew, from the 1970s, to breathe new life into Aubusson tapestry. He imposed a style and built a personal work by devoting himself relentlessly to the art of the smooth.