Rug designer Sibylle de Tavernost’s homage to Fernand Léger

Designer Sibylle de Tavernost pays ‘Homage to Fernand Léger’ with a new collection of limited-edition rugs. The pieces reframe the artists’ legacy through de Tavernost’s contemporary lens and expand the appreciation of Léger’s work for new generations. For the descendants of the French artist (1881-1955) who manage his estate, the collaboration was an opportunity to translate his abstract, geometric and poetic language of modernity into today’s terms, moving it beyond museums and into the daily life of eclectic living rooms.

Sibylle de Tavernost’s rugs pay ‘Homage to Fernand Léger’

After nearly a year of research into the breadth of Léger’s oeuvre – from ceramics, mosaics and stained glass at the Ferme-Musée Fernand Léger in Lisores, to uncovering delicate drawings and rare books in a private treasure trove of a Parisian apartment – de Tavernost finally settled upon four creations to translate: the intertwined figurative lines of Les plongeurs (1943), the bold embrace of Éléments sur fond bleu (1949), the dynamic scenery of the Femmes au perroquet mosaic (1951) and the génial Cheval sur fond jaune (1953) created as a tapestry.

‘Each rug reflects a different period of Léger’s work,’ she says. ‘I wanted to express his eclecticism, yet I also had to feel an instinctive emotion in front of each one.’ Empathy is essential to any good translation, and throughout the process de Tavernost drew from her own lifelong proclivity to abstraction, inspired by her grandfather, who painted every Sunday in a style that referenced Kandinsky, Léger and Miro. His paintings were the subject of her first-ever series of rugs seven years ago, in 2017.

For the materiality of the rugs, de Tavernost imagined a ‘matte’ effect, like the texture of Legér’s thickly layered canvases, opting for wool without a silk mix at 12,000 knots per square metre. To create her pieces, which for this collection are limited to only 15 per format, she works closely with Ifrah, an entrepreneur based in northern India near the border of Nepal. Together they have established a dedicated workshop that continues the ancestral expertise of traditional hand-knotting techniques.

The fusing of modernity and tradition has always been an interest for de Tavernost, perhaps thanks to her upbringing in Haussmannian apartments in Paris where grand fireplaces and high ceilings with decorative mouldings meet vibrant collages of contemporary objects. Intimately acquainted with these interior dimensions, she began to picture their floors as vessels for abstraction: ‘At some point, I started to see life in rugs – when riding my horse through the autumn leaves, or on holiday walking across the rocks by a lake in Capri.’

Like many modern artists, Léger worked across mediums, formats and surfaces, as seen at the chapel of the Ferme-Musée Fernand Léger. This collection of rugs has liberated his artwork once again, further releasing its lively energy into the world.

It's an energy that is palpable in the series of photographs de Tavernost created with photographer Alexis Armanet at the Ferme-Musée Fernand Léger in collaboration with museum director Jean du Châtenet, an expert on the artist. The images celebrate the fusion of artistic and craft heritage, the enduring visual power of Léger’s abstraction and the joy of living consciously across every canvas from architecture to interiors, en plein air and our imaginations.

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