Fernand Léger

Galerie Louise Leiris, Paris

Perls Galleries, New York (in 1980 and until at least 1988)

Berlin, Staatliche Kunsthalle, Fernand Léger, 1980, no. 138, illustrated in the catalogue

New York, James Goodman Gallery, Paintings, Watercolors & Drawings by Dubuffet, Léger & Picasso, 1988, no.  18

Original canvas. Some minor fluorescence under ultra-violet light in lower right quadrant and lower left corner which are not restoration but probably vestiges of some dirt which may have been cleaned off. Those are not visible to the naked eye. This work is in excellent condition.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
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The visual interplay of opposing forms was the underpinning of Léger's most dynamic works of the 1950s. In Deux tournesols sur fond bleu, the artist juxtaposes the organic with the structural, rendering his flowers with both an organic, curvalinear outline and a bold geometric patchwork of unmodulated color. The freedom with which Léger applied color by 1954, the year Deux tournesols sur fond bleu was painted, heightens this dynamic. As Léger stated, "...color has a reality in itself, a life of its own; that geometric form has also a reality in itself, independent and plastic... It is a matter of making something beautiful, moving or dramatic..." (quoted in Picasso, Braque, Léger: Masterpieces from Swiss Collections (exhibition catalogue), Minneapolis, 1975, pp. 65-66, 69).

Léger's revolutionary ideas about color and form were widely influential. In a 1997 interview with the contemporary artist Roy Lichtenstein conducted by Katherine J. Michaelsen, Lichtenstein was asked his opinion on Léger, and the elder artist's depictions of flowers came to mind:  "Even his flowers have black lines around them, or they're made of ceramic, and they're big and heavy, and they don't have anything of the flower. I love the idea of that" (quoted in Hatje Cantz, Fernand Léger Paris - New York (exhibition catalogue), Basel, 2008, p. 157).