Gustave GEFFROY - Set of letters on his action at the Gobelins.

Gustave GEFFROY (1855.1926)

Set of two autograph letters signed to François Thiébault Sisson.  

Five pages in-8° on Manufacture Nationale des Gobelins letterhead.

Paris. July 31 and August 5, 1920. Envelopes.

We enclose two LAS and an autograph business card from the same Geffroy.

“You will have something more explicit to say about the work I attempted at the Gobelins. »

Geffroy defends the work of the Manufacture Nationale des Gobelins, of which he is Director, in response to an article he considers defamatory published in Le Temps .

_____________________________________________

I. LAS to François Thiébault Sisson, editor at Le Temps.

" Paris. Saturday July 31, 1920.

My dear friend, I read in Le Temps yesterday July 30 a note, signed with your initials TS, on the administration of Fine Arts before the Senate, where Mr. Chastenet's text is taken to find "inadmissible that the administrators of our tapestry factories place orders on their own authority.” It is added that “ the Fine Arts administration must be able to control orders and examine their appropriateness. » I would like to answer you that the administrators of the factories have never placed orders on their own authority. They receive ready-made ones, or they make “proposals” to the Fine Arts administration, which has always made its decision.

Do we want to challenge the right of “proposal” to the administrators of factories, and should we, when an artist presents them with a cartoon and asks for it to be made into a tapestry, refuse to transmit this request? Must they also be so completely devoid of ideas and preferences that they never indicate the works that they believe are likely to be executed?

As for the opinion expressed by Mr. Chastenet that the artists of the national tapestry factories produce “horrors”, I allow myself to leave it to him. Likewise, I would like to know from you which works of “irremediable poverty” were the subject of commissions which were never decided by the administrators. The translated works of models by Chéret, Bracquemond, Mme Cazin, Claude Monet, Odilon Redon, Willette, Anquetin, Raffaëlli (...), will, I hope, soon be exhibited, and the public and critics will judge the entire work. hangings and furniture made for twelve years at the Manufacture des Gobelins. I believe, my dear friend, that that day, with all your freedom of mind, you will have something more explicit to say about the work that I attempted at the Gobelins under the direction and with the collaboration of the administration of Fine Arts. Gustave Geffroy. I naturally ask you to include this letter. GG.

_______________________

II. LAS to François Thiébault Sisson, editor at Le Temps.

Paris. Thursday August 5, 1920.

My dear friend, Before answering me, you have not reread your article. Here is the last paragraph: "Mr. Chastenet also appears to us to be correct in finding it inadmissible that the administrators of our tapestry factories place, on their own authority, orders whose execution frequently exceeds the forecasts of the credits and which apply often to works of irremediable poverty. The Bx-Arts administration must be able to control orders and examine opportunities. TS »

Need I tell you that there are no special credits assigned to Goblin orders, and therefore the credits are not exceeded, neither frequently nor rarely? Should we also tell you that the Bx-Arts administration has always not only controlled the orders, but also made the orders itself?

I did not write to you ab irato . I have another philosophy , and I think you know me well enough to know that I don't give so much importance to my personality, in the midst of so many movements that are shaking up the world. I was simply surprised that you, signing this information, made it yours, against me, and even that you did not give your opinion on the “horrors” and “poverties” with which the works of artists are described. that you, like me, loved and defended. It is lamentable that a budget rapporteur, whom you point out to me as having had his report produced, allows himself to appreciate twelve years of assiduous efforts so lightly , that a newspaper like Le Temps covers this lightness with its authority, and that we do not even have the right to a response which was of perfect moderation.

When I joined Gobelins, without having looked for it, I think people would have been surprised that I did not recommend the artists of our time to the attention of the Fine Arts administration. There was enough criticism to be made of previous administrations which, for a century, left aside masters like Delacroix, Ingres, Corot and the landscape painters of 1830, Courbet, Millet, Puvis de Chavannes, Fantin-Latour, Monet , Renoir, etc. I am only citing a few, you could like me make this list of the forgotten and the disdained. All these, and others, could have, as much and better than the so-called decorator painters, designed and created an aesthetic of tapestry.

I therefore executed works by Chéret, Bracquemond, Claude Monet, Odilon Redon, Willette, Anquetin, Raffaëlli, Langé, Gorguet, JB Laurens, Danger, Jean Veber, Ed. Tapissier, Franc Lamy, (…) etc. I would have wanted Besnard, Signac, Vuillard, Bernard, Roussel, Maurice Denis, whom I anticipated (did I have the right and the duty?) I would also have wanted to bring to good ends a series of Provinces and Cities of France, which was started. But you know the length of time of current work, the limited number of tapestry artists, and five years of war! Finally, I plan to exhibit the tapestries already made. That day will be the day of criticism, and I doubt that she will be content to label what will be shown to her “horrors” and “poverties”.

I'll leave it there. Excuse my lack of conciseness. The insertion of a letter in Le Temps is too complicated a matter, since, it seems, “information” consists of publishing according to the convenience of one, without admitting the truthful rectification of the other. If it suits you, with what I have written to you in my two letters, to write a note, do so! or if you preferred, a conversation with your former colleague you met by chance - because you don't often come to Les Gobelins to see what's going on there, for example the Jean Vebers, as you promised me? In this case, I would ask you to establish the distinction of absolute truth, between the "direct order", which was never the work of the administrators of Gobelins, Beauvais, Sèvres, and the "proposal", which is on the contrary part of their legitimate action. Kind regards. Gustave Geffroy. I am not in Paris, hence the delay in responding to you. »

_______________________

III. LAS to a colleague. [one page in-12°]

" Paris. December 19, 1904. My dear colleague, You only have to send your book to MM Huysmans, Descaves, Léon Daudet, J. and H. Rosny , Hennique, Mirbeau. But you have to hurry because the vote will take place in a few days. Believe in all my sympathy, and receive again my sincere thanks for your investigation. Gustave Geffroy. 210 Bd Péreire, Paris. »

_______________________

IV . LAS to François Thiébault Sisson [one page in-8°]

" Paris. January 30, 1922. My dear friend, I am late, having remained a few days without writing, but not without reading and rereading your lines which are so perfect for me, with such a benevolent appreciation, with such a deep feeling.  One could not say better for the subject, nor be more friendly to the author. I thank you wholeheartedly for your criticism , and for your friendship. Believe, you too, in my affectionate feelings. Gustave Geffroy. »

_______________________

V. Autograph business card to Gustave Hire. (Envelope preserved).

Paris, August 10, 1904 “ Gustave Geffroy – My sincere thanks. »

_______________________

Appointed director of the Manufacture nationale des Gobelins in 1908, Gustave Geffroy, particularly attentive to 19th century art, Geffroy therefore became an actor in the history of art and its place in the society of his time.

It is to this conviction that his ordering policy for the Manufacture nationale des Gobelins responds, when he asks for cartons from contemporary artists, notably his friends Bracquemond, Monet, Raffaëlli and Redon, and the place he gives them reserve in the rooms of the brand new Gobelins museum.