Held in the same collection for over 60 years and originally acquired from the artist by René Lefebvre for his personal collection, Abstractions: Two Works is a rare and exquisite example of Léger's work.

After traveling to New York in 1935, Léger started to show increasing regard for abstraction, inspired by the energy of the city and by his friendships with Le Corbusier, James J. Sweeney and the circle of architects, artists and writers to whom he was introduced. Léger became fascinated by the compositional juxtaposition of opposing forms, flat geometric shapes and rounded, organic ones. While exploring with a new sense of freedom in form, color and dynamism, his objects took on an existence of their own, as isolated fragments in space infused with the vigor and optimism of his New York experience.

Focusing on the pictorial elements of color and form, the compositional elements in the present work are bound together in a flattened space. Leger took the fragmentation of the surface a step further in Abstractions: Two Works by dividing the work into two elements, suspending them in space, perfectly balanced.

'I dispersed my objects in space and kept them all together while at the same time making them radiate out from the surface of the picture. A tricky interplay of harmonies and rhythms made up of background and surface colors, guidelines, distances and oppositions' (quoted in W. Schmalenbach, Fernand Léger, New York 1976, p. 132).

Abstractions: Two Works is a rare and beautiful example from an important period in Léger's career; invites us to an indeterminate and ambiguous space, a perfect illustration of the aesthetic transition.