Tapestry Project By Jean-louis Viard - Insomnia

Jean-Louis VIARD (Orsay 1917 - 2009 Paris) Insomnia - Tapestry project circa 1955 gouache on paper 41 x 25 cm ; 56 x 39 cm titled and inscribed on the back 'Rue Ordener - Paris / l'Insomnie' An engraver and abstract painter, also renowned for his tapestries, Jean-Louis Viard entered the École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts in Paris in 1938. He won the second Grand Prix de Rome for engraving with his Enlèvement de Proserpine in 1942. The artist began his career by creating illustrations for numerous works, including the poems of Pierre de Ronsard and the novels of Edgar Allan Poë, among others. In 1951, he was awarded the Casa de Velasquez in Madrid. His stay in Spain provided him with many inspirations, both in the literary field and in that of landscape. During this period, the artist entered a symbolist vein, where Christianity and personal spiritual interpretations blended. Later, his engravings evolved towards a resolutely surrealist style. Back in France, he became a drawing professor for the City of Paris from 1951 to 1989. He won several prizes for engraving and tapestry, and became head of the tapestry section at the Salon Comparaisons. Also a lecturer in drawing at the École Polytechnique, he taught drawing in the evenings, rue Lepic in Paris. The drawing presented to you was initially created as a tapestry cartoon project. Like an ode to sleep, as the inscriptions on it indicate, it was conceived in the middle of the night, as his son relates. The latter also told us that sleep was an almost obsessive subject for the artist, as he was an insomniac.