Fernand Léger | |
|---|---|
 Légerc. 1916 | |
| Born | (1881-02-04)February 4, 1881 Argentan, Orne, France |
| Died | August 17, 1955(1955-08-17) (aged 74) Gif-sur-Yvette, France |
| Known for | Painting,printmaking, and filmmaking |
| Movement | Cubism Modernism |
| Signature | |
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Joseph Fernand Henri Léger (French:[fɛʁnɑ̃leʒe]; February 4, 1881 – August 17, 1955) was a French painter, sculptor, and filmmaker. In his early works he created a personal form ofcubism (known as "tubism") which he gradually modified into a morefigurative,populist style. His boldly simplified treatment of modern subject matter has caused him to be regarded as a forerunner ofpop art.
Léger was born inArgentan, Orne, Lower Normandy, where his father raised cattle. Fernand Léger initially trained as an architect from 1897 to 1899, before moving in 1900 to Paris, where he supported himself as an architectural draftsman. After military service inVersailles, Yvelines, in 1902–1903, he enrolled at the School of Decorative Arts after his application to theÉcole des Beaux-Arts was rejected. He nevertheless attended the Beaux-Arts as a non-enrolled student, spending what he described as "three empty and useless years" studying withGérôme and others, while also studying at theAcadémie Julian.[1][2] He began to work seriously as a painter only at the age of 25. At this point his work showed the influence ofimpressionism, as seen inLe Jardin de ma mère (My Mother's Garden) of 1905, one of the few paintings from this period that he did not later destroy. A new emphasis on drawing and geometry appeared in Léger's work after he saw theCézanne retrospective at theSalon d'Automne in 1907.[3]
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In 1909, he moved toMontparnasse and metAlexander Archipenko,Jacques Lipchitz,Marc Chagall,Joseph Csaky andRobert Delaunay.
In 1910, he exhibited at theSalon d'Automne in the same room (salle VIII) asJean Metzinger andHenri Le Fauconnier. In his major painting of this period,Nudes in the Forest, Léger displays a personal form ofCubism that his critics termed "Tubism" for its emphasis on cylindrical forms.[4]
In 1911, the hanging committee of theSalon des Indépendants placed together the painters identified as 'Cubists'. Metzinger,Albert Gleizes, Le Fauconnier, Delaunay and Léger were responsible for revealing Cubism to the general public for the first time as an organized group.
The following year he again exhibited at the Salon d'Automne and Indépendants with the Cubists, and joined with several artists, including Le Fauconnier, Metzinger, Gleizes,Francis Picabia and the Duchamp brothers,Jacques Villon,Raymond Duchamp-Villon andMarcel Duchamp to form thePuteaux Group—also called theSection d'Or (The Golden Section).
Léger's paintings, from then until 1914, became increasinglyabstract. Their tubular, conical, and cubed forms are laconically rendered in rough patches ofprimary colors plus green, black and white, as seen in the series of paintings with the titleContrasting Forms. Léger made no use of thecollage technique pioneered byBraque andPicasso.[5]
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Léger's experiences in World War I had a significant effect on his work. Mobilized in August 1914 for service in theFrench Army, he spent two years at the front inArgonne.[4] He produced many sketches of artillery pieces, airplanes, and fellow soldiers while in the trenches, and paintedSoldier with a Pipe (1916) while on furlough. In September 1916, he almost died after amustard gas attack by theGerman troops atVerdun. During a period of convalescence inVillepinte he paintedThe Card Players (1917), a canvas whose robot-like, monstrous figures reflect his experience of the war. As he explained:
...I was stunned by the sight of thebreech of a 75 millimeter in the sunlight. It was the magic of light on the white metal. That's all it took for me to forget the abstract art of 1912–1913. The crudeness, variety, humor, and downright perfection of certain men around me, their precise sense of utilitarian reality and its application in the midst of the life-and-death drama we were in ... made me want to paint in slang with all its color and mobility.[6]
This work marked the beginning of his "mechanical period", during which the figures and objects he painted were characterized by sleekly rendered tubular and machine-like forms. Starting in 1918, he also produced the first paintings in theDisk series, in which disks suggestive of traffic lights figure prominently.[7] In December 1919 he married Jeanne-Augustine Lohy, and in 1920 he metLe Corbusier, who would remain a lifelong friend.
The "mechanical" works Léger painted in the 1920s, in their formal clarity as well as in their subject matter—the mother and child, the female nude, figures in an ordered landscape—are typical of the postwar "return to order" in the arts, and link him to the tradition of French figurative painting represented byPoussin andCorot.[8] In hispaysages animés (animated landscapes) of 1921, figures and animals exist harmoniously in landscapes made up of streamlined forms. The frontal compositions, firm contours, and smoothly blended colors of these paintings frequently recall the works ofHenri Rousseau, an artist Léger greatly admired and whom he had met in 1909.
They also share traits with the work of Le Corbusier andAmédée Ozenfant who together had foundedPurism, a style intended as a rational, mathematically based corrective to the impulsiveness of cubism. Combining the classical with the modern, Léger'sNude on a Red Background (1927) depicts a monumental, expressionless woman, machinelike in form and color. His still life compositions from this period are dominated by stable, interlocking rectangular formations in vertical and horizontal orientation.The Siphon of 1924, a still life based on an advertisement in the popular press for the aperitif Campari, represents the high-water mark of the Purist aesthetic in Léger's work.[9] Its balanced composition and fluted shapes suggestive of classical columns are brought together with a quasi-cinematicclose-up of a hand holding a bottle.
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As an enthusiast of the modern, Léger was greatly attracted to cinema, and for a time he considered giving up painting for filmmaking.[10] In 1923–24 he designed the set for the laboratory scene in Marcel L'Herbier'sL'Inhumaine (The Inhuman One). In 1924, in collaboration with andGeorge Antheil andMan Ray, Léger and the filmmakerDudley Murphy co-produced and co-directed the iconic andFuturism-influenced filmBallet Mécanique (Mechanical Ballet).[11] Neither abstract nor narrative, it is a series of images of a woman's lips and teeth, close-up shots of ordinary objects, and repeated images of human activities and machines in rhythmic movement.[12]
In collaboration with Amédée Ozenfant he established theAcadémie Moderne, a free school where he taught from 1924, withAlexandra Exter andMarie Laurencin. He produced the first of his "mural paintings", influenced by Le Corbusier's theories, in 1925. Intended to be incorporated into polychrome architecture, they are among his most abstract paintings, featuring flat areas of color that appear to advance or recede.[13]
Starting in 1927, the character of Léger's work gradually changed as organic and irregular forms assumed greater importance.[14] The figural style that emerged in the 1930s is fully displayed in theTwo Sisters of 1935, and in several versions ofAdam and Eve.[15] With characteristic humor, he portrayed Adam in a striped bathing suit, or sporting a tattoo.
In 1931, Léger made his first visit to the United States, where he traveled to New York City and Chicago.[16] In 1935, theMuseum of Modern Art in New York presented an exhibition of his work. In 1938, Léger was commissioned to decorateNelson Rockefeller's apartment.[17]
During World War II Léger lived in the United States. He taught atYale University, and found inspiration for a new series of paintings in the novel sight of industrial refuse in the landscape. The shock of juxtaposed natural forms and mechanical elements, the "tons of abandoned machines with flowers cropping up from within, and birds perching on top of them" exemplified what he called the "law of contrast".[18] His enthusiasm for such contrasts resulted in such works asThe Tree in the Ladder of 1943–44, andRomantic Landscape of 1946. Reprising a composition of 1930, he paintedThree Musicians (Museum of Modern Art, New York) in 1944. Reminiscent of Rousseau in its folk-like character, the painting exploits the law of contrasts in its juxtaposition of the three men and their instruments.[19]
During his American sojourn, Léger began making paintings in which freely arranged bands of color are juxtaposed with figures and objects outlined in black. Léger credited the neon lights of New York City as the source of this innovation: "I was struck by the neon advertisements flashing all over Broadway. You are there, you talk to someone, and all of a sudden he turns blue. Then the color fades—another one comes and turns him red or yellow."[20]
Upon his return to France in 1945, he joined theCommunist Party.[21] During this period his work became less abstract, and he produced many monumental figure compositions depicting scenes of popular life featuring acrobats, builders, divers, and country outings. Art historian Charlotta Kotik has written that Léger's "determination to depict the common man, as well as to create for him, was a result of socialist theories widespread among the avant-garde both before and after World War II. However, Léger's social conscience was not that of a fierce Marxist, but of a passionate humanist".[22] His varied projects included book illustrations, murals, stained-glass windows, mosaics, polychrome ceramic sculptures, and set and costume designs.
After the death of Leger's wife Jeanne-Augustine Lohy in 1950, Léger marriedNadia Khodossevitch in 1952. In his final years he lectured inBern, designed mosaics and stained-glass windows for theCentral University of Venezuela in Caracas, Venezuela, and paintedCountry Outing,The Camper, and the seriesThe Big Parade. In 1954 he began a project for a mosaic for theSão Paulo Opera, which he would not live to finish. Fernand Léger died suddenly at his home in 1955 and is buried inGif-sur-Yvette, Essonne.
Léger wrote in 1945 that "theobject in modern painting must become themain character and overthrow the subject. If, in turn, the human form becomes an object, it can considerably liberate possibilities for the modern artist." He elaborated on this idea in his 1949 essay, "How I Conceive the Human Figure", where he wrote that "abstract art came as a complete revelation, and then we were able to consider the human figure as a plastic value, not as a sentimental value. That is why the human figure has remained willfully inexpressive throughout the evolution of my work".[23] As the first painter to take as his idiom the imagery of the machine age, and to make the objects of consumer society the subjects of his paintings, Léger has been called a progenitor ofPop Art.[24]
He was active as a teacher for many years, first at theAcadémie Vassilieff in Paris, then in 1931 at theSorbonne, and then developing his ownAcadémie Fernand Léger, which was in Paris, then at theYale School of Art and Architecture (1938–1939),Mills College Art Gallery in Oakland, California during 1940–1945, before he returned to France.[25] Among his many international pupils werePaul Crotto,Nadir Afonso,Paul Georges,Charlotte Gilbertson,Hananiah Harari,Asger Jorn,Michael Loew,Beverly Pepper,Victor Reinganum,Marcel Mouly,René Margotton,Saloua Raouda Choucair andCharlotte Wankel,Peter Agostini,Lou Albert-Lasard,Tarsila do Amaral,Arie Aroch,Alma del Banco,Christian Berg,Louise Bourgeois,Marcelle Cahn,Norman Carton,Otto Gustaf Carlsund,Saloua Raouda Choucair,Robert Colescott,Lars Englund,Tsuguharu Foujita,Sam Francis,Serge Gainsbourg,Hans Hartung,Florence Henri,William Klein,Maryan,George Lovett Kingsland Morris,Marlow Moss,Aurélie Nemours, Gerhard Neumann,Jules Olitski,Erik Olson,Richard Stankiewicz,Theo Stavropoulos, andStasys Usinskas.[25]
In 1952, a pair of Léger murals was installed in theGeneral Assembly Hall of theUnited Nations headquarters in New York City.[26]
In 1960, theFernand Léger Museum was opened inBiot, Alpes-Maritimes, France.
Léger bequeathed his residence (at 108 Avenue du General Leclerc, Gif sur Yvette, Paris) to theFrench Communist Party, which later hosted negotiations of theParis Peace Accords between the United States,Democratic Republic of Vietnam,Republic of Vietnam and theRepublic of South Vietnam[27]
In May 2008, his paintingÉtude pour la femme en bleu (1912–13) sold for $39,241,000 (hammer price withbuyer's premium) United States dollars.[28]
In August 2008, one of Léger's paintings owned byWellesley College'sDavis Museum and Cultural Center,Mother and Child, was reported missing. It is believed to have disappeared some time between April 9, 2007, and November 19, 2007. A$100,000 reward is being offered for information that leads to the safe return of the painting.[29]
Léger's work was featured in the exhibition "Léger: Modern Art and the Metropolis" from October 14, 2013, through January 5, 2014, at thePhiladelphia Museum of Art.[30]
In 2022, it was announced that a lost painting of the rooftop series was discovered on the opposite side of the paintingBastille Day.[31]
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