Simone Lurçat (1915-2009) was the wife of the painter Jean Lurçat (1882-1966),, a member of the Académie des beaux-arts.
Born on 11 August 1915 in Castelnau-Montratier, the Lot department, Simone Selves began her career as a primary school teacher. In 1937, she enrolled at the Faculty of Letters in Toulouse, but the war forced her to interrupt her studies. On the morning of 11 November 1942, when the German army entered the Place du Capitole, Simone Selves decided to join the underground fight against the Nazi invaders. As an agent in the Lot scrubland, she met Jean Lurçat, alias Jean Bruyères, the name he took in memory of the small town in the Vosges mountains where he was born. She was then appointed head of the Comité des Œuvres Sociales et de la Résistance when the Comité Départemental du Lot was created.
When peace returned, Simone Selves helped with the repatriation of prisoners and deportees and was then sent to Baden-Baden, which had become the headquarters of the Commander-in-Chief of the French Forces in Germany. On her return to France, she was appointed to the cabinet of the Minister of Education, André Marie, and then became director of the Institut National des Jeunes Aveugles (National Institute for Blind Youth).
Simone Lurçat met Lurçat again 10 years after their first encounter in the maquis. She married the widowed artist in 1956. From then on, she gave him invaluable support at a time when commissions were pouring in, and exhibitions were multiplying all over the world.
When the artist died in 1966, Simone Lurçat worked to defend his artistic heritage. A year later, she donated the Chant du monde to the city of Angers. In 1986, she chose to donate Jean Lurçat’s works to the Tours-St-Laurent, the artist's main creative site.
In 2005, she created the Jean Lurçat – Académie des beaux-arts book prize.
At the end of her life, Simone Lurçat, concerned about the future of Jean-Lurçat's workshop, a Parisian masterpiece of modernism, its archives and collections, bequeathed it to the Académie des beaux-arts in 2009, along with the property and moral rights associated with the artist's work.
On 20 November 2010, the Conseil d'Etat (Council of State) approved the creation of the Fondation Jean et Simone Lurçat.
