FERNAND LÉGER | Étude pour Les Constructeurs

M. Cuttoli-Laugier, Paris (acquired directly from the artist)
Michel Warennes, Paris (acquired by 1965)
John Berggruen Gallery, San Francisco
Galerie Felix Vercel, Paris (and sold: Sotheby’s, London, December 2, 1987, lot 553)
Private Collection, Switzerland (acquired at the above sale)
Richard Gray Gallery, Chicago
Acquired from the above on April 20, 1990

Jean Cassou & Jean Leymarie, Fernand Léger, Dessins et gouaches: Nouvelle édition, 2012, no. 15-120, http://www.legerdessinsetgouaches.com/tableaux/etude-pour-les-constructeurs-3/ (accessed on January 30, 2018)

This work is in good condition. Executed on cream wove paper. The right edge of the sheet is deckled. The work is hinged at two places along the upper edge of the sheet. The pigments are extremely bright and fresh. There is a small loss to the corner of the sheet at lower right. There is a one inch repaired tear to the sheet along the lower right edge. The edges of the sheet are slightly dirty and overall and there is some evidence of mat staining from a previous mount along the extreme perimeter of all four edges.
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.

Léger first embarked on the theme of construction workers in 1940, and in the following decade produced a number of paintings, drawings and sketches on this subject, culminating in such monumental oils as Les Constructeurs of 1951 (see fig. 1), now in the Pushkin Museum in Moscow. This subject particularly preoccupied Léger in 1950 and 1951, when it became the primary focus of his work. Never before in his career had Léger expressed such interest in the human body, and his series of construction workers, including numerous studies of body parts, indicates a direction towards its "humanization." Léger himself gave an account of how he arrived at this subject: "I got the idea travelling to Chevreuse by road every evening. A factory was under construction in the field there. I saw the men swaying high up on the steel girders! I saw man like a flea; he seemed still lost in his inventions with the sky above him. I wanted to render that; the contrast between man and his inventions, between the worker and all that metal architecture, that hardness, that ironwork, those bolts and rivets. The clouds, too, I arranged technically, but they form a contrast with the girders" (quoted in Werner Schmalenbach, Fernand Léger, New York, 1976, p. 158).