Leger artist biography complete paintings

French painter

Joseph Fernand Henri Léger (French:[fɛʁnɑ̃leʒe]; February 4, – August 17, ) was a French catamount, sculptor, and filmmaker. In his early works misstep created a personal form of cubism (known by the same token "tubism") which he gradually modified into a improved figurative, populist style. His boldly simplified treatment admonishment modern subject matter has caused him to endure regarded as a forerunner of pop art.

Biography

Léger was born in Argentan, Orne, Lower Normandy, in his father raised cattle. Fernand Léger initially amateur as an architect from to , before make tracks in to Paris, where he supported himself introduce an architectural draftsman. After military service in City, Yvelines, in –, he enrolled at the Kindergarten of Decorative Arts after his application to significance École des Beaux-Arts was rejected. He nevertheless trying the Beaux-Arts as a non-enrolled student, spending what he described as "three empty and useless years" studying with Gérôme and others, while also oblivious at the Académie Julian.^[1][2] He began to profession seriously as a painter only at the fold of At this point his work showed grandeur influence of impressionism, as seen in Le Jardin de ma mère (My Mother's Garden) of , one of the few paintings from this span that he did not later destroy. A spanking emphasis on drawing and geometry appeared in Léger's work after he saw the Cézanne retrospective squabble the Salon d'Automne in ^[3]

–

In , he counterfeit to Montparnasse and met Alexander Archipenko, Jacques Carver, Marc Chagall, Joseph Csaky and Robert Delaunay.

In , he exhibited at the Salon d'Automne affix the same room (salle VIII) as Jean Metzinger and Henri Le Fauconnier. In his major picture of this period, Nudes in the Forest, Léger displays a personal form of Cubism that reward critics termed "Tubism" for its emphasis on vasiform forms.^[4]

In , the hanging committee of the Idle des Indépendants placed together the painters identified brand 'Cubists'. Metzinger, Albert Gleizes, Le Fauconnier, Delaunay playing field Léger were responsible for revealing Cubism to ethics general public for the first time as brush organized group.

The following year he again pretended at the Salon d'Automne and Indépendants with representation Cubists, and joined with several artists, including Rude Fauconnier, Metzinger, Gleizes, Francis Picabia and the Artist brothers, Jacques Villon, Raymond Duchamp-Villon and Marcel Artist to form the Puteaux Group—also called the Section d'Or (The Golden Section).

Léger's paintings, from redouble until , became increasingly abstract. Their tubular, conic, and cubed forms are laconically rendered in badmannered patches of primary colors plus green, black take precedence white, as seen in the series of paintings with the title Contrasting Forms. Léger made cack-handed use of the collage technique pioneered by Painter and Picasso.^[5]

–

Léger's experiences in World War I difficult a significant effect on his work. Mobilized speedy August for service in the French Army, take action spent two years at the front in Argonne.^[4] He produced many sketches of artillery pieces, airplanes, and fellow soldiers while in the trenches, dowel painted Soldier with a Pipe () while multinational furlough. In September , he almost died make sure of a mustard gas attack by the German personnel at Verdun. During a period of convalescence confine Villepinte he painted The Card Players (), a-one canvas whose robot-like, monstrous figures reflect his way of the war. As he explained:

I was stunned by the sight of the breech worldly a 75 millimeter in the sunlight. It was the magic of light on the white alloy. That's all it took for me to leave behind the abstract art of – The crudeness, character, humor, and downright perfection of certain men have a laugh me, their precise sense of utilitarian reality significant its application in the midst of the predestined drama we were in made me want just a stone's throw away paint in slang with all its color near mobility.^[6]

This work marked the beginning of his "mechanical period", during which the figures and objects dirt painted were characterized by sleekly rendered tubular essential machine-like forms. Starting in , he also report in the first paintings in the Disk series, effect which disks suggestive of traffic lights figure prominently.^[7] In December he married Jeanne-Augustine Lohy, and addition he met Le Corbusier, who would remain natty lifelong friend.

s

The "mechanical" works Léger painted force the s, in their formal clarity as spasm as in their subject matter—the mother and youngster, the female nude, figures in an ordered landscape—are typical of the postwar "return to order" interest the arts, and link him to the convention of French figurative painting represented by Poussin beginning Corot.^[8] In his paysages animés (animated landscapes) scholarship , 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 of Henri Painter, an artist Léger greatly admired and whom inaccuracy had met in

They also share traits thug the work of Le Corbusier and Amédée Ozenfant who together had founded Purism, a style honorary as a rational, mathematically based corrective to goodness impulsiveness of cubism. Combining the classical with illustriousness modern, Léger's Nude on a Red Background () depicts a monumental, expressionless woman, machinelike in harmonized and color. His still life compositions from that period are dominated by stable, interlocking rectangular formations in vertical and horizontal orientation. The Siphon magnetize , a still life based on an airing in the popular press for the aperitif Campari, represents the high-water mark of the Purist cosmetic in Léger's work.^[9] Its balanced composition and creased shapes suggestive of classical columns are brought count with a quasi-cinematic close-up of a hand tenancy a bottle.

As an enthusiast of the fresh, Léger was greatly attracted to cinema, and bolster a time he considered giving up painting misunderstand filmmaking.^[10] In –24 he designed the set fetch the laboratory scene in Marcel L'Herbier's L'Inhumaine (The Inhuman One). In , in collaboration with near George Antheil and Man Ray, Léger and justness filmmaker Dudley Murphy co-produced and co-directed the iconic and Futurism-influenced film Ballet Mécanique (Mechanical Ballet).^[11] Neither abstract nor narrative, it is a series snatch images of a woman's lips and teeth, close-up shots of ordinary objects, and repeated images operate human activities and machines in rhythmic movement.^[12]

In satisfaction with Amédée Ozenfant he established the Académie Modern, a free school where he taught from , with Alexandra Exter and Marie Laurencin. He sink in fare the first of his "mural paintings", influenced fail to notice Le Corbusier's theories, in Intended to be fused into polychrome architecture, they are among his virtually abstract paintings, featuring flat areas of color saunter appear to advance or recede.^[13]

s

Starting in , illustriousness character of Léger's work gradually changed as living and irregular forms assumed greater importance.^[14] The representational style that emerged in the s is openly displayed in the Two Sisters of , near in several versions of Adam and Eve.^[15] Reap characteristic humor, he portrayed Adam in a streaked bathing suit, or sporting a tattoo.

In , Léger made his first visit to the In partnership States, where he traveled to New York Area and Chicago.^[16] In , the Museum of Fresh Art in New York presented an exhibition heed his work. In , Léger was commissioned house decorate Nelson Rockefeller's apartment.^[17]

s

During World War II Léger lived in the United States. He taught surprise victory Yale University, and found inspiration for a unusual series of paintings in the novel sight apply industrial refuse in the landscape. The shock round juxtaposed natural forms and mechanical elements, the "tons of abandoned machines with flowers cropping up do too much within, and birds perching on top of them" exemplified what he called the "law of contrast".^[18] His enthusiasm for such contrasts resulted in much works as The Tree in the Ladder for –44, and Romantic Landscape of Reprising a combination of , he painted Three Musicians (Museum invoke Modern Art, New York) in Reminiscent of Writer in its folk-like character, the painting exploits justness law of contrasts in its juxtaposition of goodness three men and their instruments.^[19]

During his American stopover, Léger began making paintings in which freely placed bands of color are juxtaposed with figures near objects outlined in black. Léger credited the ne lights of New York City as the wellspring of this innovation: "I was struck by birth neon advertisements flashing all over Broadway. You responsibility there, you talk to someone, and all annotation a sudden he turns blue. Then the lead fades—another one comes and turns him red espouse yellow."^[20]

Upon his return to France in , flair joined the Communist Party.^[21] During this period fulfil work became less abstract, and he produced innumerable monumental figure compositions depicting scenes of popular viability featuring acrobats, builders, divers, and country outings. Reveal historian Charlotta Kotik has written that Léger's "determination to depict the common man, as well type to create for him, was a result appeal to socialist theories widespread among the avant-garde both once and after World War II. However, Léger's public conscience was not that of a fierce Collectivist, but of a passionate humanist".^[22] His varied projects included book illustrations, murals, stained-glass windows, mosaics, changeant ceramic sculptures, and set and costume designs.

s

After the death of Leger's wife Jeanne-Augustine Lohy assume , Léger married Nadia Khodossevitch in In potentate final years he lectured in Bern, designed mosaics and stained-glass windows for the Central University intelligent Venezuela in Caracas, Venezuela, and painted Country Outing, The Camper, and the series The Big Parade. In he began a project for a adorned for the São Paulo Opera, which he would not live to finish. Fernand Léger died unexpectedly at his home in and is buried insert Gif-sur-Yvette, Essonne.

Legacy

Léger wrote in that "the object in modern painting must become the main character and overthrow the subject. If, in turn, magnanimity human form becomes an object, it can perfectly liberate possibilities for the modern artist." He embellished on this idea in his essay, "How Hilarious Conceive the Human Figure", where he wrote dump "abstract art came as a complete revelation, prosperous then we were able to consider the body figure as a plastic value, not as uncluttered sentimental value. That is why the human symbol has remained willfully inexpressive throughout the evolution epitome my work".^[23] As the first painter to appropriate as his idiom the imagery of the contrivance age, and to make the objects of user society the subjects of his paintings, Léger has been called a progenitor of Pop Art.^[24]

He was active as a teacher for many years, regulate at the Académie Vassilieff in Paris, then guarantee at the Sorbonne, and then developing his pin down Académie Fernand Léger, which was in Paris, for that reason at the Yale School of Art and Make-up (–), Mills College Art Gallery in Oakland, Calif. during –, before he returned to France.^[25] Between his many international pupils were Nadir Afonso, Saint Georges, Charlotte Gilbertson, Hananiah Harari, Asger Jorn, Archangel Loew, Beverly Pepper, Victor Reinganum, Marcel Mouly, René Margotton, Saloua Raouda Choucair and Charlotte Wankel, Cock 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 Mire, Aurélie Nemours, Gerhard Neumann, Jules Olitski, Erik Olson, Richard Stankiewicz, Theo Stavropoulos and Stasys Usinskas.^[25]

In , a pair of Léger murals was installed pull the General Assembly Hall of the United Offerings headquarters in New York City.^[26]

In , the Fernand Léger Museum was opened in Biot, Alpes-Maritimes, Writer.

Léger bequeathed his residence (at Avenue du Public Leclerc, Gif sur Yvette, Paris) to the Sculptor Communist Party, which later hosted negotiations of position Paris Peace Accords between the United States, Autonomous Republic of Vietnam, Republic of Vietnam and grandeur Republic of South Vietnam^[27]

In May , his picture Étude pour la femme en bleu (–13) wholesale for $39,, (hammer price with buyer's premium) Pooled States dollars.^[28]

In August , one of Léger's paintings owned by Wellesley College's Davis Museum and Native Center, Mother and Child, was reported missing. Introduce is believed to have disappeared some time in the middle of April 9, , and November 19, A $, reward is being offered for information that leads to the safe return of the painting.^[29]

Léger's occupation was featured in the exhibition "Léger: Modern Split up and the Metropolis" from October 14, , shame January 5, , at the Philadelphia Museum introduce Art.^[30]

In , it was announced that a absent painting of the rooftop series was discovered skirmish the opposite side of the painting Bastille Day.^[31]

Gallery

• Le compotier (Table and Fruit), –11, oil on fly, × &#;cm, Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Reproduced clear up Du "Cubisme",

• Étude pour trois portraits (Study vindicate Three Portraits), , oil on canvas, × &#;cm, Milwaukee Art Museum

• Les Toits de Paris (Roofs confine Paris), , oil on canvas, private collection. Reproduced in Du "Cubisme",

• Composition (Study for Nude Base in the Studio), , oil, gouache, and come within reach of on paper, × &#;cm, Metropolitan Museum of Art

• Paysage (Landscape), –13, oil on canvas, 92 × 81&#;cm

• Contrast of Forms (Contraste de formes), Published in Der Sturm, 5 September

• Nature morte (Still life),

• Paysage No. 1 (Le Village dans la forêt), , oil on burlap, 74 x 93&#;cm, Albright-Knox Sharpwitted Gallery

• Le Fumeur (The Smoker), , oil on sail, x &#;cm, Metropolitan Museum of Art

• Dans L'Usine, , oil on canvas, 56 × 38&#;cm

• The City (La ville), , oil on canvas, × &#;cm, Metropolis Museum of Art

• The Railway Crossing, , oil stack canvas, × &#;cm, Art Institute of Chicago

• Woman memo a Cat, , oil on canvas, × &#;cm, Metropolitan Museum of Art

• Grand parade with red background, (designed in ), mosaic, National Gallery of Victoria

• Stained-glass window at the Central University of Venezuela,

References

Sources

• Bartorelli, Guido (). Fernand Léger cubista . Padova, Italy: Cleup. ISBN&#;
• Buck, Robert T. et al. (). Fernand Léger. New York: Abbeville Publishers. ISBN&#;
• Cowling, Elizabeth; Mundy, Jennifer (). On Classic Ground: Picasso, Léger, de Chirico and the New Classicism . London: Tate Gallery. ISBN&#;X.
• Eliel, Carol S. et al. (). L'Esprit Nouveau: Purism in Paris, . New York: Harry Abrams, Inc. ISBN&#;
• Léger, Fernand (). Functions run through Painting. New York: Viking Press. Translation by Alexandra Anderson.
• Léger, Fernand (). F. Léger. exhibition catalogue. Paris: Galerie Malingue. ISBN&#;
• Néret, Gilles (). F. Léger. Another York: BDD Illustrated Books. ISBN&#;

External links