Fernand Léger

Galerie Jeanne Bucher, Paris
John Richardson, New York
Saidenberg Gallery, New York
Private Collection, Illinois
Grace Hokin Gallery, Palm Beach
Acquired from the above by the present owner in 2001

The piece is laid down to a heavy paper mount. The work is light stained overall. There are two curving lines of abrasion running from just above the center of the left edge and running towards the lower right. There is some minor touch up along these lines. In addition There are some small blackened indentations found just above the shoulder of the figure to the right, as well as, in this figure's pants. Prepared by Paper Conservation Studio, Inc. 1841 Broadway, Room 604 New York, NY 10023 phone 212-315-2828 fax 212--315-2622 alan@paperconservationstudio.com
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In the early 1920s, Fernand Léger suspended the frenetic quality of his pre-war Cubist work in the interest of creating a calmer, more obviously ordered style that looked back to the art of the classical tradition.  Combining an almost architectural, seemingly impersonal drawing style with highly inflected individual touches and motifs, he developed the heroic figure style that is now recognized as the hallmark of his art.  His drawings of this period are amongst his most refined and masterful.

Executed in 1924, this drawing portrays Léger with his dealer, Léonce Rosenberg, during a trip to Italy. This Italian trip had a great impact on Leger and he was especially impressed by the Italian primitive paintings as well as the mosaics of Ravenna.  While this drawing bears some references to a flattening of the perspective and layering of planes, it nevertheless exhibits the artist's boundless enthusiasm for everything modern.  His close relationship with Rosenberg and his Gallery L'Effort Moderne led to the creation of a number of monumental, architectonic works. The present drawing relates most closely to an oil of the same year entitled, Paysage Animé (Deux hommes dans la ville), in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art (Bauquier, no. 386) (fig.1). There are three other recorded drawings of this subject and date (see: Cassou & Leymarie, Fernand  Léger, Drawings and Gouaches, Paris, 1972, nos. 111-113) which were preliminary studies for this and several other paintings on this theme.