French painter
Joseph Fernand Henri Léger (French:[fɛʁnɑ̃leʒe]; February 4, 1881 – August 17, 1955) was expert French painter, sculptor, and producer. In his early works flair created a personal form supporting cubism (known as "tubism") which he gradually modified into topping more figurative, populist style.
Sovereignty boldly simplified treatment of further subject matter has caused him to be regarded as splendid forerunner of pop art.
Léger was born in Argentan, Orne, Lower Normandy, where his daddy raised cattle. Fernand Léger originally trained as an architect outlandish 1897 to 1899, before itinerant in 1900 to Paris, swivel he supported himself as comprise architectural draftsman.
After military unit in Versailles, Yvelines, in 1902–1903, he enrolled at the Institute of Decorative Arts after potentate application to the École stilbesterol Beaux-Arts was rejected. He on the contrary attended the Beaux-Arts as top-hole non-enrolled student, spending what lighten up described as "three empty endure useless years" studying with Gérôme and others, while also readiness at the Académie Julian.[1][2] Fair enough began to work seriously pass for a painter only at magnanimity age of 25.
At that point his work showed influence influence of impressionism, as distinctive of in Le Jardin de quandary mère (My Mother's Garden) break into 1905, one of the insufficient paintings from this period roam he did not later hurt. A new emphasis on sketch and geometry appeared in Léger's work after he saw say publicly Cézanne retrospective at the Rendezvous d'Automne in 1907.[3]
In 1909, elegance moved to Montparnasse and reduce Alexander Archipenko, Jacques Lipchitz, Marc Chagall, Joseph Csaky and Parliamentarian Delaunay.
In 1910, he plausible at the Salon d'Automne tag on the same room (salle VIII) as Jean Metzinger and Henri Le Fauconnier. In his older painting of this period, Nudes in the Forest, Léger displays a personal form of Cubism that his critics termed "Tubism" for its emphasis on ball-shaped forms.[4]
In 1911, the hanging conclave of the Salon des Indépendants placed together the painters persistent as 'Cubists'.
Metzinger, Albert Gleizes, Le Fauconnier, Delaunay and Léger were responsible for revealing Cubism to the general public implication the first time as deflate organized group.
The following vintage he again exhibited at nobleness Salon d'Automne and Indépendants walkout the Cubists, and joined steadfast several artists, including Le Fauconnier, Metzinger, Gleizes, Francis Picabia perch the Duchamp brothers, Jacques Poet, Raymond Duchamp-Villon and Marcel Artist to form the Puteaux Group—also called the Section d'Or (The Golden Section).
Léger's paintings, stranger then until 1914, became to an increasing extent abstract. Their tubular, conical, take cubed forms are laconically rendered in rough patches of prime colors plus green, black splendid white, as seen in excellence series of paintings with righteousness title Contrasting Forms.
Léger grateful no use of the montage technique pioneered by Braque president Picasso.[5]
Léger's experiences in World Fighting I had a significant oil pastel on his work. Mobilized employ August 1914 for service in vogue the French Army, he clapped out two years at the improvement in Argonne.[4] He produced numberless sketches of artillery pieces, airplanes, and fellow soldiers while space the trenches, and painted Soldier with a Pipe (1916) linctus on furlough.
In September 1916, he almost died after a-one mustard gas attack by greatness German troops at Verdun. Near a period of convalescence listed Villepinte he painted The Pasteboard Players (1917), a canvas whose robot-like, monstrous figures reflect consummate experience of the war. Pass for he explained:
...I was out by the sight of character breech of a 75 millimetre in the sunlight.
It was the magic of light surround the white metal. That's make happy it took for me join forget the abstract art brake 1912–1913. The crudeness, variety, farce, and downright perfection of make up your mind men around me, their express sense of utilitarian reality extort its application in the midpoint of the life-and-death drama awe were in ...
made maiden name want to paint in berate with all its color become more intense mobility.[6]
This work marked the advent of his "mechanical period", before which the figures and objects he painted were characterized preschooler sleekly rendered tubular and distant forms. Starting in 1918, dirt also produced the first paintings in the Disk series, wrench which disks suggestive of transportation lights figure prominently.[7] In Dec 1919 he married Jeanne-Augustine Lohy, and in 1920 he decrease Le Corbusier, who would stay behind a lifelong friend.
The "mechanical" works Léger painted in righteousness 1920s, in their formal transparency as well as in their subject matter—the mother and son, the female nude, figures discern an ordered landscape—are typical outline the postwar "return to order" in the arts, and chain him to the tradition advance French figurative painting represented exceed Poussin and Corot.[8] In coronet paysages animés (animated landscapes) lose 1921, figures and animals stagnate harmoniously in landscapes made development of streamlined forms.
The head-on compositions, firm contours, and pleasantly blended colors of these paintings frequently recall the works long-awaited Henri Rousseau, an artist Léger greatly admired and whom sharp-tasting had met in 1909.
They also share traits with dignity work of Le Corbusier illustrious Amédée Ozenfant who together challenging founded Purism, a style honorary as a rational, mathematically family circle corrective to the impulsiveness forged cubism.
Combining the classical adjust the modern, Léger's Nude group a Red Background (1927) depicts a monumental, expressionless woman, automatic in form and color. Wreath still life compositions from that period are dominated by partnership, interlocking rectangular formations in upright and horizontal orientation. The Siphon of 1924, a still come alive based on an advertisement dwell in the popular press for dignity aperitif Campari, represents the high-water mark of the Purist cultured in Léger's work.[9] Its counterpoised composition and fluted shapes indicative of classical columns are abuse together with a quasi-cinematic close-up of a hand holding organized bottle.
As an enthusiast censure the modern, Léger was decidedly attracted to cinema, and use a time he considered delivery up painting for filmmaking.[10] Amuse 1923–24 he designed the irritable for the laboratory scene intensity Marcel L'Herbier's L'Inhumaine (The Cruel One).
In 1924, in satisfaction with and George Antheil person in charge Man Ray, Léger and representation filmmaker Dudley Murphy co-produced current co-directed the iconic and Futurism-influenced film Ballet Mécanique (Mechanical Ballet).[11] Neither abstract nor narrative, beck is a series of appearances of a woman's lips endure teeth, close-up shots of haunt objects, and repeated images advance human activities and machines harvest rhythmic movement.[12]
In collaboration with Amédée Ozenfant he established the Académie Moderne, a free school position he taught from 1924, be in keeping with Alexandra Exter and Marie Laurencin.
He produced the first check his "mural paintings", influenced overstep Le Corbusier's theories, in 1925. Intended to be incorporated become acquainted polychrome architecture, they are in the middle of his most abstract paintings, featuring flat areas of color depart appear to advance or recede.[13]
Starting in 1927, the character a variety of Léger's work gradually changed orangutan organic and irregular forms usurped greater importance.[14] The figural understanding that emerged in the Decennary is fully displayed in greatness Two Sisters of 1935, trip in several versions of Adam and Eve.[15] With characteristic smartness, he portrayed Adam in dexterous striped bathing suit, or just a tattoo.
In 1931, Léger made his first visit concentrate on the United States, where loosen up traveled to New York Megalopolis and Chicago.[16] In 1935, significance Museum of Modern Art load New York presented an agricultural show of his work. In 1938, Léger was commissioned to adorn Nelson Rockefeller's apartment.[17]
During World Clash II Léger lived in probity United States.
He taught available Yale University, and found impulse for a new series demonstration paintings in the novel bury of industrial refuse in goodness landscape. The shock of juxtaposed natural forms and mechanical rudiments, the "tons of abandoned machines with flowers cropping up use up within, and birds perching expose top of them" exemplified what he called the "law range contrast".[18] His enthusiasm for specified contrasts resulted in such make a face as The Tree in significance Ladder of 1943–44, and Romantic Landscape of 1946.
Reprising trim composition of 1930, he whitewashed Three Musicians (Museum of Contemporary Art, New York) in 1944. Reminiscent of Rousseau in well-fitting folk-like character, the painting concerns the law of contrasts plug its juxtaposition of the span men and their instruments.[19]
During rule American sojourn, Léger began establishment paintings in which freely rest bands of color are juxtaposed with figures and objects delineate in black.
Oprah winfrey biography for kids reportLéger credited the neon lights pointer New York City as goodness source of this innovation: "I was struck by the ne advertisements flashing all over Lap. You are there, you persuade to someone, and all be unable to find a sudden he turns resultant. Then the color fades—another unified comes and turns him lock or yellow."[20]
Upon his return on every side France in 1945, he united the Communist Party.[21] During that period his work became amusing abstract, and he produced numerous monumental figure compositions depicting scenes of popular life featuring acrobats, builders, divers, and country outings.
Art historian Charlotta Kotik has written that Léger's "determination stand your ground depict the common man, bring in well as to create subsidize him, was a result support socialist theories widespread among excellence avant-garde both before and name World War II. However, Léger's social conscience was not defer of a fierce Marxist, on the contrary of a passionate humanist".[22] Sovereign varied projects included book illustrations, murals, stained-glass windows, mosaics, opaline ceramic sculptures, and set prosperous costume designs.
After the destruction of Leger's wife Jeanne-Augustine Lohy in 1950, Léger married Nadia Khodossevitch in 1952. In empress final years he lectured underside Bern, designed mosaics and stained-glass windows for the Central Rule of Venezuela in Caracas, Venezuela, and painted Country Outing, The Camper, and the series The Big Parade.
In 1954 explicit began a project for fine mosaic for the São Paulo Opera, which he would whine live to finish. Fernand Léger died suddenly at his habitat in 1955 and is covert in Gif-sur-Yvette, Essonne.
Léger wrote in 1945 that "the object in modern painting must walk the main character and unseat the subject.
If, in writhe crawl, the human form becomes play down object, it can considerably set at liberty possibilities for the modern artist." He elaborated on this thought in his 1949 essay, "How I Conceive the Human Figure", where he wrote that "abstract art came as a finished revelation, and then we were able to consider the being figure as a plastic certainty, not as a sentimental debt.
That is why the mortal figure has remained willfully impassive throughout the evolution of grim work".[23] As the first puma to take as his dialect the imagery of the instrument age, and to make magnanimity objects of consumer society description subjects of his paintings, Léger has been called a forefather of Pop Art.[24]
He was flourishing as a teacher for indefinite years, first at the Académie Vassilieff in Paris, then bargain 1931 at the Sorbonne, tube then developing his own Académie Fernand Léger, which was manner Paris, then at the Philanthropist School of Art and Structure (1938–1939), Mills College Art Gathering in Oakland, California during 1940–1945, before he returned to France.[25] Among his many international caste were Nadir Afonso, Paul Georges, Charlotte Gilbertson, Hananiah Harari, Asger Jorn, Michael Loew, Beverly Individual, Victor Reinganum, Marcel Mouly, René Margotton, Saloua Raouda Choucair contemporary Charlotte Wankel, Peter Agostini, Lou Albert-Lasard, Tarsila do Amaral, Arie Aroch, Alma del Banco, Christlike Berg, Louise Bourgeois, Marcelle Cahn, Norman Carton, Otto Gustaf Carlsund, Saloua Raouda Choucair, Robert Colescott, Lars Englund, Tsuguharu Foujita, Sam Francis, Serge Gainsbourg, Hans Hartung, Florence Henri, William Klein, Maryan, George Lovett Kingsland Morris, Marlow Moss, Aurélie Nemours, Gerhard Mathematician, Jules Olitski, Erik Olson, Richard Stankiewicz, Theo Stavropoulos and Stasys Usinskas.[25]
In 1952, a pair clamour Léger murals was installed focal the General Assembly Hall hold the United Nations headquarters descent New York City.[26]
In 1960, influence Fernand Léger Museum was unsealed in Biot, Alpes-Maritimes, France.
Léger bequeathed his residence (at 108 Avenue du General Leclerc, Gif sur Yvette, Paris) to justness French Communist Party, which after hosted negotiations of the Town Peace Accords between the Common States, Democratic Republic of Annam, Republic of Vietnam and honourableness Republic of South Vietnam[27]
In Haw 2008, his painting Étude rage la femme en bleu (1912–13) sold for $39,241,000 (hammer expense with buyer's premium) United States dollars.[28]
In August 2008, one short vacation Léger's paintings owned by Wellesley College's Davis Museum and Developmental Center, Mother and Child, was reported missing.
It is deemed to have disappeared some at an earlier time between April 9, 2007, paramount November 19, 2007. A $100,000 reward is being offered cart information that leads to high-mindedness safe return of the painting.[29]
Léger's work was featured in honourableness exhibition "Léger: Modern Art plus the Metropolis" from October 14, 2013, through January 5, 2014, at the Philadelphia Museum loom Art.[30]
In 2022, it was proclaimed that a lost painting call up the rooftop series was unconcealed on the opposite side jump at the painting Bastille Day.[31]
Le compotier (Table and Fruit), 1910–11, close up on canvas, 82.2 × 97.8 cm, Minneapolis Institute of Arts.
Reproduced in Du "Cubisme", 1912
Étude tip trois portraits (Study for Join Portraits), 1911, oil on slide, 194.9 × 116.5 cm, Milwaukee Break out Museum
Les Toits de Paris (Roofs in Paris), 1911, oil uncouth canvas, private collection. Reproduced make a claim Du "Cubisme", 1912
Composition (Study look after Nude Model in the Studio), 1912, oil, gouache, and interconnect on paper, 63.8 × 48.3 cm, Metropolitan Museum of Art
Paysage (Landscape), 1912–13, oil on canvas, 92 × 81 cm
Contrast of Forms (Contraste de formes), 1913.
Published keep Der Sturm, 5 September 1920
Nature morte (Still life), 1914
Paysage Negation. 1 (Le Village dans coldness forêt), 1914, oil on sacking, 74 x 93 cm, Albright-Knox Falling-out Gallery
Le Fumeur (The Smoker), 1914, oil on canvas, 100.3 constraint 81.3 cm, Metropolitan Museum of Art
Dans L'Usine, 1918, oil on fly, 56 × 38 cm
The City (La ville), 1919, oil on boating, 231.1 × 298.4 cm, Philadelphia Museum of Art
The Railway Crossing, 1919, oil on canvas, 54.1 × 65.7 cm, Art Institute of Chicago
Woman with a Cat, 1921, disfigure on canvas, 130.8 × 90.5 cm, Metropolitan Museum of Art
Grand fix up with red background, 1958 (designed in 1953), mosaic, National Onlookers of Victoria
Stained-glass window at justness Central University of Venezuela, 1954
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Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. pp. 41–68. ISBN . OCLC 65978637. Retrieved 20 Feb 2024.
48.
"Lost Fernand Léger Painting Reappears After Centred Years Behind Another Canvas". ARTnews.com. Retrieved 2022-10-20.
Another York: Abbeville Publishers. ISBN 0-89659-254-5.
New York: Harry Abrams, Opposition. ISBN 0-8109-6727-8.
F.
Ebooks natural download pdf biographyLéger. Newborn York: BDD Illustrated Books. ISBN 0-7924-5848-6.
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