The Art of Dom Robert in Four Tapestries

Chance had nothing to do with it: how could a biologist resist the captivating world woven by Dom Robert  (1907-1997). He bought these four low-warp tapestries in the 1970s after the monk’s return from England, where he had fled to escape the commotion of his success in Paris. They were his first step into the world of collecting contemporary art. At the time, tapestries  were undergoing a resurgence of interest and attracted France’s finest modern artists, from Jean Lurçat to Coutaud, Grommaire, Saint-Saëns, Picart Le Doux and Dom Robert, who exhibited at La Demeure, Denise Majorel’s Paris gallery. By the time of the purchase, the Benedictine monk had reached the peak of his artistry. He filled his sketchbooks with delicate umbellifers and cartoons highlighting nature’s fragile humility. His gentle, subdued yet whimsical tapestries express a calm, cheerful, universal spiritual love with all the delicacy the loom is capable of producing. The four works up for auction were first hung in the owner's Paris apartment before the family moved to a house in Sologne in the heart of nature, where…