拍品 116
  • 116

FERNAND LÉGER | Composition aux deux fruits

估價
300,000 - 500,000 USD
Log in to view results
招標截止

描述

  • 費爾南·雷捷
  • Composition aux deux fruits
  • Signed F.Léger., dated 38 and dedicated à Nelson Rockefeller cordialement (lower right)
  • Oil on canvas
  • 16 1/4 by 20 1/4 in.
  • 41.3 by 51.4 cm
  • Painted in 1938.

來源

A gift from the artist in 1938

出版

Georges Bauquier, Fernand Léger: Catalogue raisonné, 1938-1943, Paris, 1998, no. 994, illustrated p. 38

Condition

The work is in very good condition overall. The canvas is unlined. There is some minor scattered hairline craquelure, most notable in the green and red pigments. There is a small area of indentation to the canvas in the red pigment in the lower left quadrant. Under UV light, 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.

拍品資料及來源

While Léger made a number of trips to the United States throughout the 1930s, his return to New York in 1938 marked the beginning of a decades-long friendship with Nelson Rockefeller. Léger had recently been introduced to Rockefeller’s primary architect, Wallace K. Harrison, through the sculptor and collector Mary Callery. While the exact date of his introduction to Léger is unknown, Harrison would prove pivotal to the artist’s work in the United States. In August 1938, Léger wrote “Ten days ago I had lunch with Harrison, Radio City’s architect and also Rockefeller’s, with Mrs. Callery. From this, decorative project for Nelson Rockefeller’s apartment…so trip to New York stay 3 months with a studio at my disposition…!” (quoted in Fernand Léger (exhibition catalogue), The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1998, p. 48).

In addition to his estate at Pocantico Hills, Rockefeller owned a Manhattan apartment at 810 Fifth Avenue for which Léger completed a monumental mural over one of the fireplaces. This initial venture between Rockefeller, Harrison and Léger fostered a series of subsequent collaborations, including the unrealized “cinematic mural” at Rockefeller’s Radio City Music Hall and two murals for the General Assembly Hall of the United Nations. Rockefeller would even invite Léger to work alongside Harrison on a guesthouse for Kykuit, his 250-acre estate north of New York City. Through such projects, Léger became one of Rockefeller's closest artist friends throughout the remaining years of his life. Indeed, in 1940, as war engulfed Léger's home continent, Rockefeller helped to secure the artist's permanent residency in the United States by writing a letter to Immigration and Naturalization Services on Léger's behalf. 

In addition to these large-scale commissions, Rockefeller acquired a number of Léger’s smaller works for his personal collection, including Composition aux deux fruits. Painted the same year as his fateful lunch with Wally Harrison and Mary Callery, Léger’s canvas includes an express dedication to the future governor. Liberating the traditional still life subject matter from its conventional context, Composition aux deux fruits succinctly expresses Léger’s aim to let objects exist for their own sake in an isolated, revitalized state. Not only an expression of Léger’s avant-garde aesthetic, Composition aux deux fruits is the product of one of the great artist-collector relationships in modern art.