Kathleen M. Morris

A striking collection of French tapestries, from the 1940s to today, from the collection of the Mobilier nationale, Paris Beginning in the 1930s, artists, government officials, art dealers, and entrepreneurs sought ways to modernize the ancient tradition of tapestry-making in France to reassert its role as an independent art form available to contemporary artists. What followed was several decades of intense production that brought international attention to a renewed tradition of French tapestry, as well as new opportunities for the historic manufactories of Gobelins and Beauvais, now overseen by the Mobilier national of France. Drawing from the celebrated collection of the Mobilier national from the 1940s to present day, this book explores the works of such artists as Joan Miró, Jean Lurçat, Henri Matisse, and Le Corbusier, who were central to the rapid resurgence of tapestry production. Distributed for the Clark Art Institute Exhibition Schedule: Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA (December 14, 2024–March 9, 2025)

A beautifully illustrated, concise critical analysis of the art, careers, and reception of the husband-wife team of artists known as Les Lalanne François-Xavier (1927–2008) and Claude (1925–2019) Lalanne were a husband-wife team of artists who created inventive and often surprising works that have been widely admired and collected since the 1960s. This book presents a carefully selected group of sculptures that focus on a shared preoccupation of the artists: the transformation of natural forms to serve new purposes, such as François-Xavier’s giant grasshopper sculpture that opens into a bar and Claude’s bench made of galvanized metal branches and vines such that it remains as much a forest as a place to sit. Critical analysis explores the full breadth of the artists’ careers; considers the complex issues of reception and categorization of their work; and prompts a reevaluation of the place their art occupies in the context of art museums, all while encouraging readers to consider relationships among nature, art, and their own encounters with both.Distributed for the Clark Art InstituteExhibition Schedule:Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA (May 8–October 31, 2021)