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RWA magazine Spring 2012
Tapestries: Jan Yoors Jane Hruska
one of the many lives of
The work of internationally acclaimed tapestry maker, photographer, painter, printer and sculptor Jan Yoors (1922 – 1977) is enjoying a renaissance: Yoor’s extensive artwork will be exhibited in numerous galleries worldwide this year. As artist and weaver, Yoors revolutionised the medium of tapestry, and his work will be seen at the FeliXart Museum in Brussels, Gallery Fifty One in Antwerp, and in Crafting Modernism at the Museum of Arts and Design in New York City. Friend of the family, Jane Hruska, introduces this remarkable man: RWA magazine
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Jumping aboard a Romany Gypsy wagon in 1934 at the age of 12 marked the beginning of Jan Yoors’ second life – a life spent mostly away from his Antwerp family. This impulse eventually led him to a third life: thwarting Nazis for the O.S.S. and the British Secret Service during World War II. This enterprise landed him in a German prison from which he escaped. Later, in 1944, he found himself in Miranda del Ebro, a Spanish concentration camp from which he was released a few months later due to the intervention of Anthony Eden. Yoors eventually returned to Antwerp where he reconnected with Annebert, a childhood friend, whom he later married in London. For a while, his fourth, more domestic life found him studying International Law at the School of Oriental and African Studies, painting and drawing at home, and becoming a father. Annebert’s close friend, Marianne, was encouraged to join them as an au pair and artist’s model. His fifth life then took him to New York City in 1950 where he was later joined by Annebert and Marianne. Yoors’ father, Eugene, was a famous Belgian artist who specialised in stained glass. Preferring not to confine his talent within that medium’s rigid frame, Jan honed his considerable drawing, painting, photography, and sculpting skills. However, it wasn’t long before he would change course again. Following their 1947 visit to the V&A’s Masterpieces of French Tapestry, which featured 200 tapestries from medieval times through to 1940, Jan, Annebert, and Marianne were inspired to take on the challenge of teaching themselves to weave the remarkable tapestries that make up his current collection of over 200. The three built their own loom in a warehouse studio located at 96 Fifth Avenue (the same space where you would find William Zorach and Jack Levine) before moving down the block from Andy Warhol’s Factory on 47th and 1st Avenue. The 18 feet long by 18 feet high loom was built with large, heavy wooden beams with no treadles, and one set of string heddles that stretched the width of the loom. Yoors preferred to use linen for the warp because of its strength, and wool for the weft for the same reason. Like medieval weavers, he only used Persian wool and linen. He persuaded two Armenian wool dyers to match the exact brilliance of colours found in his world travels and among the Romany Gypsies, and save these extraordinary dyes for him alone. His early palette boasted only 15 to 20 colours similar to the range found in medieval tapestries, although Yoors’ colours were more intense, but toward the end he used many more direct, less complex colour relationships.
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His cartoons were drawn in full scale and fully rendered, even those as large as 24 by 7.5 feet. Whether consciously or unconsciously, Yoors’ drawings and figurative tapestries imitated stained glass by separating the forms from both the background and other forms with a thick, black line, strengthening the bold power of those colours, and adding an unexpected three-dimensional depth. Former Textile Conservator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Nobuko Kajitani once commented that: “[Jan] is the only person who can use two contrasting colours to make an area three-dimensional. That’s his magic.” Yoors found enormous comfort working with others, noting that he credits this preference to memories of
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He persuaded two Armenian wool dyers to match the exact brilliance of colours found in his world travels and among the Romany Gypsies, and save these extraordinary dyes for him alone.
living among the Gypsies contrasted with his experience as a secret agent and solitary confinement in prison. The tapestry trio often discussed the original designs, agreeing to adjust the size or alter the colour. Marianne reports that mistakes were made in some of the first, small practise attempts, but the viewer might find these originals difficult to fault. As the three wove life into their inspirations, they listened to and were inspired by classical, Gypsy, and Spanish music. Yoors noted: “We make a single tapestry from each design, as opposed to the current trend of producing editions or a series of reproductions. In an age marked by either anonymous mass production or, in its very opposite, what I consider, excessive egocentrism and interpersonal distrust, the team work demanded by the making of tapestries as we practice it, is one of the purest forms of romance and personal fulfilment.”
A compelling series of 60 to 70 gouache designs based on the Old Testament were Yoors’ first undertaking. Of these, 20 to 25 were actually woven, the rest exhibited as paintings. After the war, when construction was rampant in the United States, Yoors found that in addition to private homes, the blank walls of new office buildings offered the perfect site for his large, bold tapestries. He once remarked: “I see contemporary tapestries as a way to give human, that is lyrical, scale to massive corporate architectural environments, perchance, and against all odds, to widen horizons and heighten the awareness of human vitality, dignity and the inherent joy of life.” In the late 1950s, he turned to abstracts, as well as figurative work that included animals and nudes. Most of his abstracts reflect soft, easy lines and round curves, perhaps mirroring the curves and forms of his nudes, and the free flowing direction of Romany Gypsy life. Yoors’ personal history is partially reflected in one of his 1958 works, The Horsemen of the Apocalypse, an image of two skeletons riding two skeleton horses alongside two skeleton dogs with a Greek caption at the bottom stating: “The conquerors will be conquered.” This masterpiece now hangs in the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. Also in Washington, D.C., Jan was commissioned by architect Marcel Breuer to design a two-storey tapestry for his Hubert H. Humphrey building. Among their permanent collections, you will find Jan Yoors’ tapestries in the Chicago Art Institute, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Art and Design in New York City. Following a tragic bout with diabetes and the amputation of both legs, Yoor’s Romany Gypsy ‘cousins’ learned of his hospital stay in New York. Many Gypsies came from all over the world including Spain, Canada, and the United States, eight to twelve of whom took Jan out of that gaje hospital, believing he would be much happier and safer at home. Yoors died shortly after in 1977, survived by Marianne, Annebert, and his three children – Kore, Vanya and Lyuba. Marianne and Annebert remained close friends for 79 years before Annebert died in 2010. In 2011, Yoor’s tapestries were shown at the Regeneration Gallery and the Armory Show in New York City, the American International Fine Arts Fair in Palm Beach, the Pavillon des Arts & Design, the Galerie Chevalier in Paris, and the Design Miami in Basel. His vast collection of paintings, drawings, sculptures, photography, and tapestries is managed by his wife, Marianne and their son, Kore.
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In an age marked by either anonymous mass production or, in its very opposite, what I consider, excessive egocentrism and interpersonal distrust, the team work, demanded by the making of tapestries as we practice it, is one of the purest forms of romance and personal fulfilment. 1 (page 34) Mexican Pink Tantra 7.5 x 10 feet 1976 2 Vermillion Tantra 8 x 10 feet 1976 3 In The Past 7 x 8 feet 1975
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