Background
Fernand Léger was born on February 4, 1881, in Argentan, Orne, France to a peasant family. He was a son of Henri Armand Léger, a cattle dealer, and Marie-Adèle Daunou.
1925
Fernand Léger in his Parisian studio. Photo by Choumoff/Roger Viollet.
1925
Fernand Léger in his Parisian studio. Photo by Roger Viollet.
1933
Fernand Léger in his studio. Photo by Imagno.
1944
11 W 53rd St, New York, NY 10019, United States
Fernand Léger in front of his painting Plongeur Sur Fond Jaune at the Museum of Modern Art, New York City. Photo by Sam Shaw/Shaw Family Archives.
1948
Fernand Léger surrounded by his works in his Left Bank studio, following a trip to New York.
Fernand Léger
Fernand Léger studied at the Académie Julian in the early 1900s.
Fernand Léger working at his Parisian studio.Photo by Gjon Mili/The LIFE Picture Collection.
Fernand Léger in his studio, France, around 1950. Photo by Imagno.
Fernand Léger working in his studio. Photo by Herrmann/Pix Inc./The LIFE Images Collection.
Fernand Léger working in his studio, Montparnasse. Photo by Gunter R. Reitz/Pix Inc./The LIFE Images Collection.
Fernand Léger standing in front of window which looks out onto Times Square area in his studio. Photo by Herrmann/Pix Inc./The LIFE Images Collection.
Fernand Léger in his studio in the 1950s. Photo by Reporters Associés/Gamma-Rapho.
Fernand Léger in his studio in the 1950s. Photo by Reporters Associés/Gamma-Rapho.
Fernand Léger in beret. Photo by Eric Schaal/Pix Inc./The LIFE Images Collectio.
Fernand Léger with some of his works, around 1950-1960. Photo by Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone.
(A seminal work of abstract cinema still hell-bent on spee...)
A seminal work of abstract cinema still hell-bent on speed remains a touchstone for modernist preoccupations with industry, mass culture, repetition and montage.
https://www.amazon.com/Ballet-Mechanique-Alice-Prin/dp/B01M22ZG3J/?tag=2022091-20
artist designer painter sculptor
Fernand Léger was born on February 4, 1881, in Argentan, Orne, France to a peasant family. He was a son of Henri Armand Léger, a cattle dealer, and Marie-Adèle Daunou.
Fernand Léger's father died three years after his birth, so, the boy was raised by his mother to become a successful tradesman like his father. But in the early childhood, Léger revealed his talent for drawing.
He started his education at the Collège d'Argentan (now Collège de Mezeray). However, the boy wasn't a brilliant pupil, he was fascinated only by drawing and gymnastics, that's why he soon was sent by his mother to a religious boarding school in Tinchebray. There, Léger received the first drawing lessons from the local decorator, M. Corbin. Then, against his family's wishes, Fernand had been apprenticed by an architect in Caen for two years.
Later, Léger tried to enter the School of Fine Arts in Paris, but was rejected and decided to pursue his studies at the Paris School of Decorative Arts which he enrolled at in 1903 combining it with the studies at a private school, Académie Julian. He left the Paris School three years later, calling the training "three empty and useless years." Rejected to enter the School of Fine Arts, however, Léger took some private lessons there as a non-enrolled student.
Fernand Léger’s career started in 1900 when he moved to Paris and worked first as an architectural draftsman with a Parisian architect and later as a retoucher of photographs.
After the military service in the 2nd Engineer Regiment in Versailles, Yvelines, Léger took up residence in La Ruche, the picturesque city of studios, where he rented a studio and made the acquaintance of the painters Archipenko, De Laurens, Lipchitz, Delaunay, Chagall, and Soutine. He met Picasso and Braque in 1910 and exhibited with them at the Salon d'Automne. Through such poets as Guillaume Apollinaire, Max Jacob, Blaise Cendrars, and Pierre Reverdy, Léger gained a connection with the Cubist movement.
In 1913, Fernand Léger took part in the Armory Show exhibitions organized by the American Association of Painters and Sculptors, in New York, Chicago, and Boston, and regularly exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants since then. On May 5th of the same year, he read his first lecture, The Origin of Painting and its Representative Value, at the Académie Vassilieff in Paris. It marked the beginnings of his teaching career. The first lecture was followed by the second one a year later, "Current Pictorial Realizations."
Léger painted his first canvases under the influence of Cézanne, in particular La Noce (The Wedding, 1910), the famous Femme en bleu (Lady in Blue, 1912), and the series of Eléments géométriques (Geometrical Elements, 1913-1914), in which he introduced striking contrasts in color and form.
During World War I, the artist served as a sapper. He was discharged from the army after being gassed at the Battle of Verdun. Returning to Paris in 1917, he became interested in the modern concepts of speed and machines. The same year, Léger created The Card Party, which was based on sketches of his fellow soldiers. This work marked the beginning of his mechanical period. The Card Party was followed by the production of La Ville (The Town, 1919), Le Mécanicien (The Mechanic, 1920), Le Grand Déjeuner (Three Women, 1921), and La Gare (The Station, 1923), in which the human form is expressed in a world of tubes, motors, rods, and gears. Two other masterpieces, Le soldat à la pipe (1916) and La partie de cartes (1917), were also inspired by his military service. In 1918, Léger signed an agreement with Léonce Rosenberg, owner of the Galerie de l'Effort Moderne, where the artist had his first solo exhibition a year later.
At the same time Léger turned his attention to the problems of dimension and light, in an attempt to identify space with color. The large decorations he executed for the Exposition of Decorative Arts in Paris (1925), the Brussels International Exposition (1935), and the UN General Assembly building in New York (1952) are examples of this period.
By 1926 Léger's interests centered upon the question of the static and the dynamic, and many of his works were inspired by the cinema and ballet. Placing an object in midair, without perspective or support, he attempted to contrast it violently with other objects or with invented forms, as in his Les trois Musiciens (The Three Musicians, 1927), Adam et Eve (Adam and Eve, 1935 - 1939), and Les deux Soeurs (The Two Sisters, 1935).
Fernand Léger visited the United States several times from 1931 to 1939. There, he participated in numerous lectures underlining the connection between painting and architecture. He collaborated with famous architects, such as Harvey W. Corbett, Buckminster Fuller, John Storrs, Paul Nelson, Wallace K. Harrison, and Mallet-Stevens. He also designed interiors with his friend Charlotte Perriand. In 1938, Léger paints abstract wall decorations in N. Rockefeller's apartment.
Two years later, the artist took refuge in the United States from World War II, teaching at Yale University and later at Mills College. The dynamic rhythm of American life stimulated his creative activity, inspiring his canvases of acrobats, divers, and cyclists, as well as his masterpiece, Adieu New York (1946).
Returning to Paris in December 1945, the painter completed his mythology of modern life with a series of vast compositions, Loisirs (The Pastimes, 1949), Les Constructeurs (The Constructors, 1950), La Partie de Campagne (The Country Party, 1953), and La Grande Parade (The Great Parade, 1954). The paintings Fernand Léger created during his residence at the United States, were exhibited in the spring of 1946 at the Galerie Louis Carré under the title "Fernand Léger, American works 1940-1945."
Léger's interests extended into many fields of art like mosaics, stained glass, book illustrations, tapestry cartoons, and theater décors and in this work he attempted to portray his personal reactions rather than static, photographic representation. So, Fernand Léger designed costumes for the ballet of the choreographer Jean Börlin, Skating-Rink (1922), and Création du monde (1923).
In the field of motion pictures, Léger produced the first film without scenario, Le Ballet mécanique (The Mechanical Ballet, 1924). In 1934 Alexander Korda asked him to do the decor of a film by H. G. Wells, The Shape of Things to Come. He worked with Alexander Calder, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, and Man Ray on the Hans Richter film Dreams That Money Can Buy (1948).
Léger also produced about 55 ceramics. Some of them were based on his models and executed after his death. These include the two great medallions in the mosaic composition across the facade of the Fernand Léger Museum at Biot, Alpes Maritimes, which his widow organized, and which was inaugurated on May 13, 1960.
Skating Rink
(the Insane drawing of costume for Jean Börlin)
The Creation of the World
(Great Figure drawing of costume)
Skating Rink
(drawing of the curtain of scene)
The Creation of the World
(drawing of curtain of scene)
The Creation of the World
(Monkey drawing of costume)
The Creation of the World
(bird drawing of costume)
Skating Rink
(drawing of decoration)
The Creation of the World Fetish
(drawing of costume)
Creation of the World
(drawing of costume)
The Creation of the World
(costume of woman)
Church Sancellemoz Assy
Fourth State, Church of Assy
Study for the Creation of the World
Drawing of ground plan for the office of Jean Zay
1st State Church of Assy
The Church of Our Lady of All Graces
Draft costume (Front)
The Church of Our Lady of All Graces Mosaic
Crypt of the Memorial at High Mardasson Mosaic Model
Trouville
Study for builders of feet
Study of nuts
Flint
Portrait of Henry Viel, a friend of painter
Portrait of Nadia
Manufacturers
Study for the decor of the Darius Milhaud opera Bolivar
Portrait of Henry Viel, a friend of painter
Study for the Circus
Head constructor
Two Women (Two Sisters)
Study for a Portrait
Portrait of Andre Mare
(A seminal work of abstract cinema still hell-bent on spee...)
Skating Rink
(marine blue and red drawing of costume)
The Acrobat and His Partner
The Study for the City Centre
Machine element 1st state
Woman with Parrot
The Baluster
The Bridge of the Tug Boat
Naked model in the workshop
Butterflies (Still Life with Butterflies)
Acrobats in the circus
Smoke
The Woman with the Fruit Dish
Mechanical Elements on Red Background
The tree in the scale
Discs
Factories
July 14
Mechanical Elements on a Blue Background
Contrast of Forms
The Man with the Cane
Three Characters
The Disc
The man with the pipe
The Sitted Woman
The Bather
Forms in Space
Acrobats in gray
The great tug
Ball bearing
Two women with the toilet, final state
Geometric standards
Mona Lisa with the Keys
Fishermen
Mural
Adam and Eve
Breakfast
The butterfly on the wheel
Mechanical compositions
The Large Tug Boat
Contrast of Forms
The Woman with the Armchair
The Staircase
Project Design Stage for a Fitness
Three Women
Plungers II
Composition
Composition on an orange background
The House in the Trees
Blue guitar and vase
Trouville
The Staircase
Contrasts of Forms
The kneeling woman
Women with a Blue Vase
Two Women and Still Life 1st State
Composition
The Composition with the Umbrella
Still life in the tankard final state
Reading
The great Julie
The House under the Trees
Landscape
Still Life
Still Life
Trouville
Propellers 2nd state
New York goodbye
The star
The Woman and the child
Accordion
Machine element
Animated Landscape
Mural
Three women with the still life
Men in the city
Pear Compotoir
Machine elements
Contrast of forms
Houses in the trees #3
The typographer
Still Life with Fruits
The level crossing (final state)
Both handlebars
The Station
Composition
Women with Mirror
Three girls on red background
The Woman in Blue
Abstract composition
The Сity
Nudes in the forest
Dance
The Three Comrades
Contrast of Forms
Study for a Portrait
The man in the blue hat
Transport forces
Two discs in the city
Acrobats and clowns
The Exit of the Russian Ballet
Leisure on red background
The Breakfast
Composition with the two parrots
Woman with a Book
The rider acrobat juggler
Man and Woman
The Inhuman
Woman with flower
Soldier with a pipe
Smokers
The two women bouquet
Discs
Chimneys on Rooftops
Two Figures, naked on red bottom
The Circus
The Stove
A.B.C.
The Butcher Shop
Composition for a Mural
The Mechanic
Still Life
Landscape animated 1st study
A Disc in the City
Manufacturers on a blue background
Still life in the machine elements
Still life composition leaf
Three musicians
Three characters
Still life
Staircase 19
Woman with a Cat
Contrast of form
The birds in the landscape
Composition at pitcher
Draft costume (Front)
Green Leaf
The Creation of the prehistoric World state
Contrast of object
The Balcony
Dance
The polychrome Fleur
Three figures
Birthday, two women
Leisures on red bottom
Machine elements
The proof that the Man descent monkey
Still life
Composition with the three figures
The Part of Chart
The Level Crossing
The Card Players
The Big Black Divers
The Constructors
Fernand Léger became a member of the Communist Party in 1945. Although, the artist was more passionate humanist than a strong Marxist.
Quotations:
"If my father had lived a few years longer, I would have become a cattle dealer like him. No doubt. I was strong, I loved going to the field to see the oxen. It's amazing, the life of great farmers… I spent my whole childhood in Normandy, it gave me solid, rough foundations."
"My first paintings were done in the impressionist genre, right after that I had a reaction against impressionism… and I had that reaction because I felt that the impressionist period had been naturally harmonious while mine was no longer so."
"Contrast has always frightened peaceful and satisfied people, who adore the state of peacefulness, in the negative sense."
"I took the object, I blew up the table, I put the object in the air without perspective and without support. I scattered objects in space and made them stand with each other… An easy game of harmony and rhythms, made up of background colors, surfaces, narrative lines, distances and oppositions, sometimes unusual encounters…"
"A crazy speed drives the world and creates a whirlwind where thousands of butterfly individuals will be drowned without hope… Remember that the great natural functions must nevertheless be our barometer."
"Free the popular masses, give them a chance to think, even to cultivate themselves, and we will be at peace, they will in turn fully enjoy the plastic novelties that modern art offers."
"In 1940, I was working on my Divers series in Marseille, five or six people diving. I leave for the United States and one day, I go to the pool. It was not just five or six divers anymore, but two hundred at a time. Can you distinguish! Whose head? Whose leg? Whose arms? I did not know anymore. So I painted scattered limbs…"
"In 1942, when I was in New York, I was struck by the advertising spotlights sweeping the streets. Here you are, talking to someone, and suddenly, it turns blue. Then the color disappears, another one appears, red, yellow. That color, the color of the spotlight, is free: it is in space. I wanted to do the same thing in my paintings."
"I wanted to mark a return to simplicity with art that was direct, comprehensible to everyone, without subtlety. I think that it is the future, and I would like to see young people take that path."
Quotes from others about the person
Umberto Boccioni, an Italian painter and sculptor: "From our very first conversation in the Closerie des Lilas the day after the opening of the first exhibition of Futurist painting [in Paris, February 1912] I noticed that Fernand Léger was one of the most gifted and promising Cubists. Léger's article ['Les origins de la peinture et sa valeur representative', Mai 1913) is a true act of Futurist faith which give us great satisfaction - all the more so since the author is kind enough to mention us."
Albert Camus, a French author and philosopher: "It is curious to note that the most intellectual kind of painting, the one that tries to reduce reality to its essential elements, is ultimately but a visual delight. All it has kept of the world is its color. This is apparent particularly in Léger."
Asger Jorn, an artist: "One day Pierre Loeb said to me that the ideal picture is one which is completely clear in the artist's mind before he puts a mark on the canvas, and this was, at any rate in this period.. .Léger's opinion. It is the basis on which classical art is built. Therefore the setting-down of the picture on the canvas is in itself something quite unimportant. This is connected with Léger's hatred of textural effects in painting. But I love these effects. I remember that I was once told off because I had applied a thick layer of color instead of the thin and even layer that Léger wanted. To him that was not painting but mere color. If he could have got a machine instead of a brush to apply the color, he would have done so."
Franz Kline, an American painter: "You can tell in Léger just when he discovered how to make it like an engine.. .What's wrong with that? You see it in Barney (= Barnett Newman) too, that he knows what a painting should be. He paints as he thinks painting should be, which his pretty heroic."
Dore Ashton, writer and art critic: "Léger was a big, avuncular, kindly sort of man, as I remember him. And he would look at what I put there, and he'd find something. He only made one or two comments. The one I remember was, "Ça, ça saut de la peinture" He'd find a place, and he'd say: "That jumps out of the painting." Or he'd say: - he had this, I think, Norman accent – "Ça commence:" "That's beginning." And those two – no – but he had body language, too. You knew if he liked it or if he didn't like it by watching him."
Fernand Léger was married twice. His first wife became Jeanne-Augustine Lohy in December 1919.
Two years after her death, in 1952, Léger married Nadia Khodossevitch, a French artist.