Fernand Léger

The artist's studio
André Lejard, France
Martel Collection, France
Sale: Hôtel Drouot, Paris, December 13, 1991, lot 83
Acquired at the above sale

Georges Bauquier, Irus Hansma & Claude Lefebvre du Preÿ, Fernand Léger, Catalogue raisonné de l'oeuvre peint et supplément 1954-55, Paris, 2013, no. 1631, illustrated in color p. 72

This work is in very good condition. The canvas is unlined. The colors are bright and fresh. There are minor signs of frame abrasion to the corners, as well as a thin vertical scratch running through the upper center of the composition. A few minor studio stains are present and pentimenti is visible in several places including at upper right and lower center. The verso and stretcher are inscribed "420", this painting's Léger Atelier archive number; a sealed label is affixed to the reverse confirming authenticity and signed by Georges Bauquier. Under UV light areas of pentimenti are visible however no inpainting is apparent.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

In Le Signal dans le paysage, the artist juxtaposes the natural with the mechanical, rendering his subject with both an organic, curvilinear outline and a bold geometric patchwork of unmodulated color. The freedom with which Léger applied color by this stage in his career heightens this dynamic. As Léger stated, “…color has a reality in itself, a life of its own; that geometric form has also a reality in itself, independent and plastic… It is a matter of making something beautiful, moving or dramatic” (quoted in Picasso, Braque, Léger: Masterpieces from Swiss Collections (exhibition catalogue), Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis, 1975, pp. 65-66 & 69). Executed in large areas of single pigments, 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 legacy of Léger’s exploration of pictorial space can be found in the works of the Pop artist’s, such as Roy Lichtenstein, who paid homage to Léger’s influence in a series of paintings that included key motifs and images from his art (see fig. 1). In a 1997 interview with Lichtenstein conducted by Katherine J. Michaelsen, Lichtenstein was asked his opinion on Léger, and the elder artist’s depictions of flowers came to mind: “Even his flowers have black lines around them, or they’re made of ceramic, and they’re big and heavy and they don’t have anything of the flower. I love the idea of that” (quoted in Hatje Cantz, Fernand Léger Paris–New York (exhibition catalogue), Fondation Beyeler, Basel, 2008, p. 157). 

Léger himself explained the abstract element of his painting: “The realistic value of a work of art is completely independent of any imitative character. This truth should be accepted as dogma and made axiomatic in the general understanding of painting... Pictorial realism is the simultaneous ordering of three great plastic components: Lines, Forms and Colours... [The] modern concept is not a reaction against the impressionists' idea but is, on the contrary, a further development and expansion of their aims through the use of methods they neglected... Present-day life, more fragmented and faster moving than life in previous eras, has had to accept as its means of expression an art of dynamic divisionism; and the sentimental side, the expression of the subject (in the sense of popular expression), has reached a critical moment... The modern conception is not simply a passing abstraction, valid only for a few initiates; it is the total expression of a new generation whose needs it shares and whose aspirations it answers” (quoted in Dorothy Kosinski, ed., Fernand Léger, 1911-1924, The Rhythm of Modern Life, Munich & New York, 1994, pp. 66-67).