Fernand Léger

Galerie Louise Leiris, Paris
Private Collection
Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York
Stephen Hahn, New York
Private Collection (acquired from the above circa 1961)
Thence by descent

Georges Bauquier, Fernand Léger, Catalogue raisonné, 1932-1937, Paris, 1996, no. 883, illustrated p. 160

Canvas is unlined. Surface bears a rich and textured impasto. Some minor paint shrinkage in yellow at the center right. Under UV light, one spot of inpainting apparent in the upper left. Otherwise fine. Work is in excellent condition.
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Verging between representation and abstraction, Le tronc d'arbre combines a commonplace object and shapes often found in Léger's still-lifes, with abstract geometric forms. Executed in large blocks of primary tones, the work encapsulates Léger's belief in the key role of pure color in his painting. Rather than representing a likeness of the world that surrounds him, the artist uses overlapping patches of color as the principal element of the composition, creating new spatial relationships within the two-dimensional plane of the canvas. The sharply outlined geometric forms provide contrast to the organic elements, suggesting a sense of movement throughout the composition. The artist's primary concern is the exploration of the language of painting in its fullest and purest form; he thus reduces his vocabulary to the elements of color and form.

Léger's compositions executed during the 1930s were populated with images taken from the natural world, such as butterflies, flowers and trees. In Le tronc d'arbre the monolithic, dominant form of the tree trunk is combined with the more abstract forms to the right and in the background – all painted in powerful, unmodulated colors, delineated in black and silhouetted against the foreboding blue background. According to Léger, these are the colors that express the reality of the medium of painting and the resulting image defies a sense of gravity and transcends the earth-bound nature of a traditional landscape or still-life. In 1950 Léger wrote: "The plastic life, the picture, is made up of harmonious relationships among volumes, lines, and colors. These are the three forces that must govern works of art. If, in organizing these three elements harmoniously, one finds that objects, elements of reality, can enter into the composition, it may be better and may give the work more richness" (quoted in Carolyn Lanchner, Fernand Léger, New York, 1998, p. 247).