- 36
Fernand Léger
Description
- Fernand Léger
- Nature morte
- Signed F. LÉGER and dated 24 (lower right); signed F. LÉGER, titled and dated 24 on the reverse
- Oil on canvas
- 31 5/8 by 45 5/8 in.
- 80.5 by 116 cm
Provenance
G. David Thompson, Pittsburgh
Galerie Beyeler, Basel
Baron Graindorge, Liège
Galerie Maeght, Paris
Sale: Sotheby's, New York, May 11, 1987, lot 81
Acquired at the above sale by the present owner
Exhibited
Geneva, Musée de l'Athénée, Exposition ORT, 1960, no. 39
Zurich, Kunsthaus; Düsseldorf, Kunstmuseum; The Hague, Gemeentemuseum & Turin, Galleria d'Arte Moderna, Thompson Pittsburgh: Aus einer Amerikanischen Privatsammlung, 1960-61, no. 111, illustrated in the catalogue
Basel, Galerie Beyeler, Cubisme, 1962, no. 48, illustrated in the catalogue
Basel, Galerie Beyeler, Cubisme, 1962, no. 40, illustrated in the catalogue
Basel, Galerie Beyeler, F. Léger, 1964, no. 21, illustrated in the catalogue
Bremen, Galerie Michael Hertz, Fernand Léger: Werke aus den Jahren 1909 bis 1955, 1966, no. 6, illustrated in the catalogue
Vienna, Musée du XXe Siècle, Fernand Léger, 1968, no. 16, illustrated in the catalogue
Basel, Galerie Beyeler, Fernand Léger, 1969, no. 13, illustrated in the catalogue
Düsseldorf, Städtische Kunsthalle, Fernand Léger, 1969-70, no. 35, illustrated in the catalogue
London, The Tate Gallery, Léger and Purist Paris, 1970, no. 46, illustrated in the catalogue
Paris, Grand Palais, Fernand Léger, 1971-72, no. 79, illustrated in the catalogue
Malines, Cultureel Centrum der Stadt Mechelen Bourgmestre A. Spinoy, Fernand Léger, 1979, no. 26, illustrated in the catlaogue
Caracas, Museo de arte contemporaneo, Fernand Léger, 1982, no. 17, illustrated in the catalogue
Zürich, Museum für Gestaltung; Berlin, Bauhaus-Archiv Museum für Gestaltung; Strasbourg, Ancienne Douane & Paris, Centre culturel Suisse, L'Esprit Nouveau, Le Corbusier et l'industrie 1920-1925, 1987, illustrated in the catalogue
Literature
Christian Zervos, "Fernand Léger Est-il Cubiste?," Cahiers d'Art, Paris, 1933, no. 3-4, illustrated p. 118
Pierre Descargues, Fernand Léger et la règle des contrastes, XXe Siècle, Paris, 1969, no. 33, illustrated p. 38
Georges Bauquier, ed., Fernand Léger, Catalogue raisonné, 1920-1924, Paris, 1992, no. 373, illustrated in color p. 303
Catalogue Note
Writing about Léger's works from 1924-27, Christopher Green commented: 'They are the product of a pictorial idea of the figure or object whose brutal "plastic" simplicity is personal, but which is the product of an approach to the realities of modern life indelibly tinged with the idealism of L'Esprit Nouveau, an approach which remains stubbornly "realist" but whose highly selective vision of the world picks out the most useful, the most geometrically "pure", the most precisely finished of its manufactures, and subjects even the nude or the figurative fragment to the mass-production yet "classical" values thus extracted. And in their grand, harmonious architecture with its clear articulation of spatial incident, these paintings are at the same time the product of an international avant-garde [...] Their assurance and the conviction they carry is founded on more than fifteen years of faith in what was then most modern about the industrial world, of openness to what was most new in the avant-garde and of experiment in book illustration, theatre and film as well as in painting' (C. Green, Léger and the Avant-Garde, New Haven & London, 1976, p. 310).