The artist Claire Tabouret has been chosen by the French president Emmanuel Macron and the Paris archbishop, Laurent Ulrich, to design new stained-glass windows for six of the chapels in Notre-Dame de Paris, which reopened on 7 December. Presenting her winning project to the media, the artist said she intended to paint praying people from different cultures celebrating the Pentecost.
The 43-year-old French painter, based in Los Angeles, will work with the glass-maker Simon-Marq from Reims. Founded in 1640, the Simon-Marq workshop restored the windows of the cathedral in Reims after it was bombed during the Second World War. It has also made stained-glass windows with contemporary artists such as Miro, Chagall, and, more recently, Imi Knoebel in Reims and Jean-Paul Agosti, for the Sacred Heart Church of Geneva.
Tabouret is best known for her poignant portraits of children, scarred by a red mark. She is represented by Emmanuel Perrotin and Almine Rech, who have exhibited her work in Paris, London and New York. Her work has also been shown at ICA Miami and in Venice during the last two Biennales; it can also be found in the collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the billionaire businessman François Pinault. The last day (2016), a 3m-wide painting, representing children in various costumes, posed as if for a class photograph, was sold by Christie’s for £620,000 in London in 2021.
One hundred and ten artists were screened for the task of creating the cathedral’s stained-glass windows by an artistic committee, which then selected a short list of eight candidates.
The choice of a figurative painter was an explicit demand from the Catholic Church, which excluded abstract artists such Daniel Buren. Creating the windows is expected to take two years. But, before that, the state will have to face opposition in court. Defenders of cultural heritage are unhappy about the replacement of the windows designed for the cathedral by Eugène Viollet-le-Duc in the 19th century, which only needed cleaning after the devastating fire in 2019.
The association Sites and Monuments has said it will file a lawsuit prohibiting the change of windows, in the name of the principles of the Venice Charter on restoration of historical buildings. The National Commission of Heritage and Architecture has unanimously voted against the plan and a petition to stop Macron’s project has been signed by 243,000 people.
