Cauquil-Prince attended the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts of Mons in Belgium, but her mastery of tapestry weaving was largely self-taught, inspired by her study of Coptic textiles and tapestries from the Renaissance and Middle Ages.
She established her first studio in Paris in the late 1950s and later worked in Corsica.[2] In 1963 Marie Cuttoli engaged Cauquil-Prince to weave Picasso tapestries, under the condition that she would remain in the background and never meet the artist personally. One of these tapestries, La Fermière, is now in the Picasso Museum at Antibes.
Cauquil-Prince was awarded the Chevalier of the Ordre national du Mérite in 1977 by the French government.
Collaboration with Chagall
Cauquil-Prince was introduced to Chagall by Madeleine Malraux, wife to the French minister of Culture, André Malraux, shortly after Chagall had created tapestries for the Israeli Knesset in the mid-1960s.[3] Chagall and Cauquil-Prince formed a close personal as well as professional relationship which lasted until Chagall's death in 1985.
"I am like a conductor," she told an interviewer, "and Chagall is the music. I must understand the work of Chagall so profoundly that I myself do not exist."[4] Chagall called her "the Toscanini of tapestry," and declared that "there will never be a tapestry by Chagall without you."[5]
In the early 1970s Chagall's wife, Vava, became jealous of her husband's special relationship with his collaborator (Chagall made it a point to tell everyone that Yvette Cauquil-Prince was his "petite fille" and spiritual daughter"). Shortly after executing commissions from the Jewish Museum Milwaukee and the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago for what would be the first Chagall tapestries in America, Yvette was prevented from working with Chagall for a decade.[6] During this period she developed her association with Max Ernst.
Shortly before Chagall's death Vava relented and Cauquil-Prince resumed their collaboration. Chagall made Cauquil-Prince promise to continue to translate his works into tapestries, which she did with Vava's blessings and later with Chagall's children and grandchildren with whom she remained very close.
Exhibitions
Solo exhibitions
1971, Galerie Verrière, Paris, France
1975, Chapelle des Cordeliers, Sarrebourg, France
1976, Exposition Marc Chagall, Hongrie et Pologne
1976, Exposition Max Ernst, Arles, France
1976, Exposition Max Ernst, USA
1976, Exposition Max Ernst, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Bruxelles, Belgique
1976, Exposition Max Ernst, Arts Center Museum, Philadelphia, PA
1976, Exposition Max Ernst, Art Center, Milwaukee, WI
1976, Exposition Max Ernst, Art Center Museum, Los Angeles, CA
1976, Galerie Dario Boccara, Paris, France
1979, Musée de Heidelberg, Allemagne
1979, Musée de Céret, Catalogne, France
1981, Centre Teschigahara, Tokyo, Japan
1983, Abbaye de l'Epau, France
1985, Musé de l'Athénée, Geneva, Switzerland
1991, Musée de Heidelberg, Germany
1992, Exposition Yvette Cauquil-Prince, Tampere, Finland
