Fernand Léger
"I organise the opposition between colours, lines and curves. I set curves against straight lines, patches of colour against plastic forms, pure colours against subtly nuanced shades of grey."
Fernand Léger French, 1881 - 1955
L'Anniversaire, 1950 Gouache and India ink over pencil on paper Sheet size: 29½ x 21⅝ inches / 74.8 x 55 cm Image size: 18⅞ x 16½ inches / 48 x 42 cm Signed with initials lower right: FL Authenticated on the reverse by Nadia Léger and Georges Bauquier (no G581-20B) Stamped on the reverse: Musée National Fernand Léger
Léger visited New York several times before settling there during the Second World War. Between 1940 and 1945 he influenced many New York School painters, and oversaw a lecture series at Yale on ‘Colour in Architecture.’ A number of major works were commissioned from the artist during his time there, by patrons such as Nelson Rockefeller and the architect Wallace K. Harrison. The present example, completed five years after Léger left the USA, testifies to his enduring passion for New York’s modernist buildings, and for the technological spirit and dynamic society that he felt characterised the metropolis.
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As distinct from some of Léger’s earlier works which depict humans as machine-like, L’Anniversaire employs carefully-placed plant imagery to emphasise the natural and organic contours of the human figure.
Provenance
Galerie Duchaudon, Paris John Carter Galleries, Austin Anon. sale, Christie’s New York, 12 May, 1988, lot 187 Jeffrey H. Loria collection, New York This painting is no. G581-20B in the archives of the Musée National Fernand Léger, Biot and is accompanied by a certificate of authentication kindly issued by Irus Hansma