Fernand Léger

Galerie Simon, Paris
Josef Müller, Solothurn (acquired from the above in 1926)
Monique Barbier (by descent from the above)
Galerie Beyeler, Basel (acquired from the above in 1979)
Phyllis Hattis, San Francisco
Private Collection (acquired from the above in 1979 and sold: Sotheby’s, New York, November 8, 2001, lot 257)
Acquired at the above sale

Zurich, Kunsthaus Zürich, circa 1945 (lent by Josef Müller)
Basel, Galerie Beyeler, Petits Formats, 1978, no. 91
Basel, Galerie Beyeler, Stilleben im 20. Jahrhudert, 1978-79, no. 53
San Francisco, Charles Campbell Gallery, Master Drawings: European and American, 1979, no. 47

Phyllis Hattis, "Zu den Bildern in der 'Schanzmüle,'" Du, August 1978, illustrated in a photograph of the Müller collection

This sheet is in very good condition. Executed on paper laid down on card. The Card is affixed to a mount along the top edge of the verso. Remnants of adhesive from a previous mounting are visible along the bottom edge of the recto and verso of the card but do not interfere with the image. The right edge is deckled. Minor paint shrinkage visible in the red and blue pigments. The sheet is slightly dirty, including a nailhead size spot of dirt at top center, but the pigments appear bright and fresh. A couple of extremely minor spots of adhesive are visible at the extreme bottom edge of the sheet.
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.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

This work closely relates to a slightly earlier piece, Composition (Composition 7) of 1925 in the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, one of the best-known examples of Fernand Léger's Purist phase. Influenced by the Dutch review De Stiijl and such artists as Mondrian, Le Corbusier and Ozenfant, Léger began this series of clean, architectural still lifes in 1923. When asked of the changes in his work, Léger responded: "In 1923-24 I completed paintings whose important elements were objects set right outside of any kind of atmosphere and unconnected with anything normal—objects isolated from the subjects I had abandoned. The subjects in the painting had already been destroyed, just as the avant-garde film had destroyed the story-line. I thought that the object, which had been neglected and poorly exploited, was the thing to replace the subject" (quoted in Jean Cassou & Jean Leymarie, Léger Drawings and Gouaches, Greenwich, 1972, p. 88).

Léger was inspired partly by the windows of Parisian shops, crowded with objects, and also by the cinema. In 1924 he created Ballet Méchanique, a film that was without subject or story line but filled instead with fragmentation and repetition of mass-produced objects. His comments on his film also relate to the work being done in his studio: "There are not only natural elements such as the sky, the trees and the human body; all around us are things man has created that are our new realism... Fragments of objects were also useful; by isolating a thing you give it personality. All this work led me to consider the event of objectivity as a very new contemporary value" (quoted in Serge Fauchereau, Fernand Léger, New York, p. 21). In the present work we see these fragments of a vase, a column and a book, all assembled in a gracefully composed still life that hovers on the edge of abstraction.