Fernand Léger

Galerie Louis Carré & Co., Paris
Sale: Svensk-Franska Konstgalleriet, Stockholm, February 28, 1955, lot 34
Private Collection, Scandinavia (acquired at the above sale)
Private Collection, Scandinavia (by descent from the above and sold: Christie's, London, December 9, 1998, lot 651)
Opera Gallery, Paris
Acquired from the above in 2003

Dora Vallier, "La Vie fait l'oeuvre de Fernand Léger," in Cahiers d'Art, Paris, 1954, no. 2, illustrated p. 157
Georges Bauquier, Irus Hansma & Claude Lefebvre du Preÿ, Fernand Léger, Catalogue raisonné de l'oeuvre peint 1952-1953, Paris, 2013, no. 1531, illustrated in color p. 121 

This work is in excellent condition. The canvas is not lined. The surface is clean and very well preserved. There is a single pin hole directly below the horse along the bottom edge. Under UV light no inpainting is apparent.
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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La Petite parade exemplifies Léger's fascination with the expressive potential of color and his assertively geometric technique—two defining stylistic factors of his work. This painting is part of Léger's well-known series of pictures from the 1950s entitled La Grande Parade, the final version of which resides in the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York.

The circus fascinated Léger since childhood, and as the artist matured it began to symbolize the joy of life regardless of age, origin and beliefs. “The subject of acrobats, circuses, of the grouping together of those themes of leisure which Léger had always envisaged as the tangible symbols of man's freedom are to be found in the very beginning of his work and throughout his paintings” (Peter de Francia, Fernand Léger, New Haven & London, 1983, p. 248). As Léger himself explained, “If I have drawn circus people, acrobats, clowns, jugglers, it is because I have taken an interest in their work for thirty years” (quoted in Simon Willmoth, "Léger in America" in Fernand Léger: The Late Years (exhibition catalogue), London, Whitechapel Art Gallery, 1987-88, p. 126)

Léger has rendered the pictorial elements in La Petite parade with a sharp clarity that is characteristic of his mature work, using a vivid plane of blue for the background while coloring the figures with contrasting primary colors, and then further articulating the pictorial elements' contours with bold, black lines. The colors, in keeping with his works of this period, are fully saturated, voluminous and substantial.

Portrayed against the monochromatic background, the inverted direction of the two figures in conjunction with the leftward looking horse—a gaze mimicked by the acrobat’s legs that frame the clown’s face—render an animated monumentality for the scene. As Robert Herbert notes, “Léger’s geometry is so fundamental to his conception of art and society that, like his theory of contrasts, it permeates all aspects of his painting. ‘A picture organized, orchestrated, like a musical score, has geometric necessities exactly the same as those of every objective human creation’” (quoted in Robert L. Herbert, From Millet to Léger, New Haven, 2002, p. 135). Here, Léger uses geometry as a repeated and meta-framing device, with each black line articulating disparate geometric forms that when together create a whole living being, just as the machinery that so fascinated Léger is pieced together to create a functioning device. This juxtaposition of natural forms and mechanical elements exemplifies what Léger deemed to be the “law of contrast,” a concept of great import to Léger’s mature works (Gilles Néret, F. Léger, New York, 1993, pp. 210-17).