Fernand Léger

The artist's studio

Private Collection

Opera Gallery, New York

Acquired from the above by the present owner in 2009

Tokyo, Galeries Seibu; Nagoya, Galeries Meitetsu & Fukuoka, Centre Culturel, Rétrospective Fernand Léger, 1972, no. 91, illustrated in the catalogue

Gilles Néret, Léger, Paris, 1990, no. 269, illustrated p. 199

Georges Bauquier, Irus Hansma & Claude Lefebvre du Preÿ, Fernand Léger, catalogue raisonné de l'œuvre peint, 1952-1953, Paris, 2013, no. 1589, illustrated in colour p. 201

The canvas is unlined and there is no evidence of retouching under ultra-violet light. This work is in very good original condition. Colours: Overall fairly accurate in the printed catalogue illustration, although slightly more vibrant in the original.
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In 1952 and 1953 Léger painted several versions of Peinture murale, including the present monumental example, and a smaller first version now at the Musée National Fernand Léger in Biot (fig. 1). This group of works, of which the present oil is the most tonally rich, vibrant version, resulted in the large-scale mural also at the Léger Museum, painted the following year (fig. 2). Executed in large blocks of solid pigment, the present work encapsulates Léger’s belief in the key role of pure colour in his painting. Rather than representing a likeness of the world that surrounds him, the artist uses overlapping patches of colour as the principal element of the composition, creating new spatial relationships within the two-dimensional plane of the canvas. In 1950 Léger wrote: ‘The plastic life, the picture, is made up of harmonious relationships among volumes, lines, and colors. These are the three forces that must govern works of art. If, in organizing these three elements harmoniously, one finds that objects, elements of reality, can enter into the composition, it may be better and may give the work more richness’ (quoted in Carolyn Lanchner, Fernand Léger, New York, 1998, p. 247).

 

Léger was a great proponent of public art, and throughout his career he executed a number of murals, large-scale mosaics and outdoor sculpture. Discussing his monumental works in the context of the rise of public art in the period following the Second World War, Pierre Descargues wrote: ‘Monumental art grew out of the nakedness of the new style of architecture. When Léger saw this, he wrote: “The walls need to be exalted, the buildings and the city need to be given a joyful face. The job calls for a threesome: a wall, an architect and an artist.” […] His desire for a public oeuvre grew out of his determination to transmit an art form stripped of symbols and emblems, devoid of all taint of myth and ideology. […] Léger could free himself of everything except his duty to painting’ (P. Descargues, ‘The Monumental Art of Fernand Léger’, in Yvonne Brunhammer, Fernand Léger: The Monumental Art, Milan, 2005, pp. 12-17).

 

During the final years of his life, Léger’s art oscillated between figurative works, such as the celebrated La partie de campagne and Les constructeurs, and fully abstract compositions such as the present work. Focusing on the pictorial elements of colour and form, the overlapping elements of Composition murale sur fond jaune are painted in strong, unmodulated colours, delineated in black and silhouetted against a flat monochrome background. According to Léger, it is the primary colours, combined with black and white, that express the reality of the medium of painting. Rather than imitating nature, the artist was interested in exploring the language of painting in its fullest and purest form, thus reducing his vocabulary to the essential pictorial elements. As a result, Léger’s composition defies a sense of gravity and transcends the earth-bound nature of a traditional work of art.