Ivan Da Silva Bruhns participated and furthered Art Deco through an uttermost truculent vein : that of decorative tapestry. R. Cogiat (Art and Decoration) wrote of him that he may be « the one who understood the most and the best the place of tapestry in decoration at his time.
His first momentum for painting both guided him and fed his textile creations. He exposed these creations at the Salon des Indépendants from 1911 to 1923, at the Salon d’Automne from 1913 to 1936 and at the National Society of Beaux-Arts. Simple and elegant, the vast range of geometric or ethnic designs supplemented with natural colors seduced the greatest French designers of the inter-war period, such as Ruhlmann and Leleu and participated immensely in the revival of tapestry art in France.
A veritable manufacture located in Savigny-sur-Orge quickly replaced the small workshop he erected in Aisnes. From embassies to national palaces, from liners (including famous Normandie, Atlantique, Ile de France, la Marseillaise) to fabulous decorative ensembles, Da Silva Bruins’s tireless and conscientious work has led to success after success over the years.
« A rug is just one paving. It sure is a more opulent and warmer paving to the eye and the foot than mosaic or marble floors, but, just as the latter, the rug must remain leveled by its designs, strictly confined at its place in space by the sobriety and density of its colors. ». So spoke Da Silva Bruhns, as mere epigraph of a monumental work.