[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”4.18.0″ _module_preset=”default” min_height=”7185.8px” custom_padding=”1px||0px|||” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.18.0″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.18.0″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.27.0″ _module_preset=”default” text_font_size=”16px” text_line_height=”1.8em” text_orientation=”justified” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”]<\/p>\n
(1881-1951)<\/span><\/p>\n Fernand L\u00e9ger is one of the great figures of modern art in the first half of the 20th century. His work is highly personal, immediately identifiable and firmly rooted in his era. <\/p>\n His family intended him to become an architect. In 1900, he left his native Normandy for Paris. As a free student, he studied with painter Jean-L\u00e9on G\u00e9r\u00f4me at the \u00c9cole nationale sup\u00e9rieure des Beaux-Arts, then with his successor Gabriel Ferrier. He also attended the Acad\u00e9mie de la Grande Chaumi\u00e8re. His early works are marked by Impressionism. <\/p>\n The discovery of C\u00e9zanne’s work, particularly at the retrospective devoted to him by the Salon d’Automne in 1907, was a revelation, as it was for many other artists of his generation, including Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. “C\u00e9zanne, the master of us moderns [1]<\/span><\/a>.”<\/span><\/a> L\u00e9ger followed the Aix-en-Provence master’s lesson by breaking down reality into geometric forms set in perspective. “Treating nature through the cylinder, the sphere, the cone, all set in perspective [2].<\/span><\/a>” <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n At the same time, he moved to La Ruche, where he rubbed shoulders with Blaise Cendrars, Robert Delaunay, Marc Chagall and Alexandre Archipenko. He exhibited at the Salon d’Automne in 1908 and 1909. In Jacques Villon’s studio in Puteaux, L\u00e9ger takes part with Albert Gleizes, Jean Metzinger and Raymond Duchamp-Villon in the meetings that give rise to the Puteaux group and the Section d’or. <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/galerie-institut.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/leger-fernand-1939-etude-pour-les-perroquets.jpg” alt=”Hommage \u00e0 Apollinaire, Chagall, 1913″ title_text=”leger-fernand-1939-etude-pour-les-perroquets” url=”https:\/\/galerie-institut.com\/produit\/leger-fernand-etude-pour-les-perroquets-1939\/” align=”center” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” width=”62%” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font_size=”12px” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”]<\/p>\n \u00c9tude pour composition aux deux parroquets, 1939, <\/em>Indian ink and pencil on paper \u00a9 ADAGP, Paris, 2024.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font_size=”16px” text_line_height=”1.8em” text_orientation=”justified” custom_padding=”||0px|||” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”]<\/p>\n His work is part of the classical tradition that gives primacy to drawing. He insists on the highly thought-out, constructed dimension of his work, which is very sensitive indeed. “I don’t know how to improvise[3]<\/span><\/a>“he says. His works combine this classical background with signs of modernity. L\u00e9ger’s aim was to create art in tune with the times, art in tune with what was new and modern. “A work of art must be significant in its own time, like any other intellectual manifestation.[4]<\/span><\/a>” <\/span><\/a>. In this context, let’s recall Marcel Duchamp’s famous remark while visiting the Salon de la locomotion a\u00e9rienne in the company of Constantin Brancusi and L\u00e9ger: “Painting is finished. Who could do better than a propeller? Say, can you do that?[5]<\/span><\/a> ?” <\/span>L\u00e9ger remained a painter, however, and although his work resonated with the times, unlike that of the Futurists, he was not an apologist for modernity. In 1912, in Les Peintres cubistes,<\/em> m\u00e9ditations esth\u00e9tiques<\/em>, Guillaume Apollinaire counted L\u00e9ger among the painters of orphism, a derivative of cubism that gave pride of place to the light created by color. The same year, Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, famous dealer for Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque and Juan Gris, offers L\u00e9ger his first solo exhibition, followed the next year by an exclusive contract. <\/p>\n In the “Contrastes de formes” series of 1913, L\u00e9ger’s new language is the equivalent of the fragmentation of vision and syncopated rhythm he observes everywhere. Beyond this group of works, the “principle of contrasts” and their intensity permeate all of L\u00e9ger’s work. <\/p>\n Fernand L\u00e9ger was one of those artists who took up the pen, like Henri Matisse and Wassily Kandinsky among his contemporaries. For two successive years, in 1913 and 1914, he gave a lecture at the Vassilieff Academy: “Les Origines de la peinture contemporaine et sa valeur repr\u00e9sentative” on May 5, 1913 (published in two parts in Monjoie !<\/em> n\u00b08, May 29, 1913 and n\u00b09-10, June 14-29, 1913) and “Les R\u00e9alisations picturales actuelles” on May 9, 1914 (published in Les Soir\u00e9e de Paris<\/em> n\u00b025, June 15, 1914). These two texts inaugurated a whole series of writings until his death in 1955.[6]<\/span><\/a>. Like many artists, his departure for the front in August 1914 marked a break with the past. It put an abrupt end to a period of exceptional creative effervescence. Georges Braque, Andr\u00e9 Derain and Guillaume Apollinaire also left. Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, a German national, moves to Switzerland, where he stays for the duration of the conflict. His gallery and stock were sequestered. L\u00e9ger is mobilized in 1914 in the Engineers. He drew a great deal, always breaking down shapes into simple geometric volumes (soldiers, cannon breeches, etc.). After suffering a gas attack, he was hospitalized and discharged in 1917. During his convalescence, he undertook the large-scale composition with its C\u00e9zanne-like subject, La Partie de cartes<\/em>, dated December 1917 (Otterlo, Kr\u00f6ller-M\u00fcller Museum), born of the observation of his fellow students. The forms are broken down into geometric volumes. <\/p>\n <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n <\/a><\/span><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/galerie-institut.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/leger-fernand-1950-maquette-pour-le-cirque.jpg” alt=”Lovers in Green, Chagall, 1916-1917″ title_text=”leger-fernand-1950-maquette-pour-le-cirque” url=”https:\/\/galerie-institut.com\/produit\/leger-fernand-maquette-pour-le-cirque-1950\/” align=”center” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” width=”66%” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font_size=”12px” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”]<\/p>\n Model for Cirque<\/em>,1950, pencil, gouache, Indian ink on paper \u00a9 ADAGP, Paris, 2024.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font_size=”16px” text_line_height=”1.8em” text_orientation=”justified” custom_padding=”0px||0px|||” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”]<\/p>\n The war had a profound effect on him. L\u00e9ger became aware of the domination of civilization by the machine. For several years, his work revolved around mechanical iconography. In 1918 and 1919, his work was dominated by the themes of disks and the city. He plays with contrasting forms and colors, which oppose and respond to each other. He creates fragmented, discontinuous spaces that suggest the hustle and bustle of modern life. The discs recall, in a different language, those of Robert Delaunay in 1912-1913, and beyond, his research into circular forms. The Delaunays sought to create an art form that would embody modern life, reflecting the simultaneity of the world. The Discs<\/em> foreshadow La Ville<\/em> of 1919 (Philadelphia Museum of Art). With its brightly colored planes, letters escaped from posters or billboards, and balustrades, it translates urban modernity. L\u00e9ger created a number of different versions: Les Hommes dans la ville (Men in the City<\/em>), L’\u00c9chafaudage (Scaffolding<\/em>), Le Passage \u00e0 niveau (Level Crossing<\/em>) and others. Through the themes of the city and the machine, the artist develops a “new realism”. The human figure also occupies a privileged place. It is desensualized, treated as an equal to objects, subjected to a machinist aesthetic, reflecting the anonymity and harshness of modern life\/civilization. It’s the object-figure: “For me, the human figure, the human body, is no more important than keys or bicycles […]. One must consider the human figure not as a sentimental value, but solely as a plastic value. In 1919, L\u00e9ger signed a contract with L\u00e9once Rosenberg’s gallery L’Effort moderne, which presented his first solo show in February.<\/p>\n Restrained during the years of conflict, artistic activity experienced extraordinary dynamism in the 1920s, aptly named the “Roaring Twenties”. It was a very flourishing period. Aesthetically, these years were a counterweight to the extremely innovative and experimental period that preceded the war. Many artists returned to a more traditional, classicist aesthetic, which helped to renew their language. Think of Pablo Picasso’s “ingresque” period, with its massive figures, or Henri Matisse’s odalisques. L\u00e9ger’s round figures, with their simplicity of form, have something archaic about them. In the 1920s, his still lifes bore similarities to the purist aesthetic (beyond cubism) advocated by Am\u00e9d\u00e9e Ozenfant and Le Corbusier. L\u00e9ger’s During the 1920s, artists diversified their practice. They became increasingly interested in fields other than painting, such as book illustration, decorative painting, ballet sets and costumes, tapestry, stained glass and ceramics. <\/p>\n L\u00e9ger produced his first illustrated book, J’ai tu\u00e9<\/em>. Prose<\/em> de son ami Blaise Cendrars in 1918 (Paris, La Belle \u00e9dition). He shared with Cendrars a certain fascination for the elements of modern life. The following year, he illustrated La Fin du monde film\u00e9e par l’Ange Notre-Dame <\/em>(Paris, \u00c9ditions de la sir\u00e8ne, 1919) by the same author. He repeated the experience with Andr\u00e9 Malraux’s Lunes en papier<\/em> (Paris, Galerie Simon, 1921). <\/p>\n It was also the golden age of Serge de Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes and Rolf de Mar\u00e9’s Swedish Ballets. Artists actively collaborated in the design of sets and costumes. Diaghilev enlisted Picasso for eight ballets between 1917(Parade<\/em>) and 1924(Le Train bleu<\/em>), Andr\u00e9 Derain(Boutique fantasque <\/em>created in 1919), Henri Matisse(Le Chant du Rossignol<\/em> also in 1919). L\u00e9ger collaborated with Les Ballets su\u00e9dois in 1922. He designed the sets and costumes for Skating Rink<\/em>, a ballet based on a poem-argument by Riciotto Canudo, music by Arthur Honegger and choreography by Jean B\u00f6rlin. The following year, at a time when African imagery was permeating all areas of creation, he designed the sets and costumes for La Cr\u00e9ation du monde<\/em>, a ballet based on an argument by Blaise Cendrars, music by Darius Milhaud and choreography by Jean B\u00f6rlin, premiered on October 25, 1923 at the Th\u00e9\u00e2tre des Champs-Elys\u00e9es. He was a regular performer until 1950. <\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/galerie-institut.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/leger-fernand-1953-maquette-pour-l_affiche-maison-de-la-pensee-francaise.jpg” alt=”Lovers in Green, Chagall, 1916-1917″ title_text=”leger-fernand-1953-maquette-pour-l_affiche-maison-de-la-pensee-francaise” url=”https:\/\/galerie-institut.com\/en\/produit\/leger-fernand-the-parade-1953\/” align=”center” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” width=”66%” custom_padding=”||0px|||” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font_size=”12px” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”]<\/p>\n La Parade<\/em>,1953, pencil, gouache, Indian ink on paper \u00a9 ADAGP, Paris, 2024.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font_size=”16px” text_line_height=”1.8em” text_orientation=”justified” custom_padding=”0px||0px|||” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”]<\/p>\n A moving image with immense technical and artistic possibilities, cinema fascinated a number of artists at the time, who ventured into this discipline. Viking Eggeling, La Symphonie diagonale<\/em>, which L\u00e9ger saw in 1924, Hans Richter, Rythmus 21<\/em> (1921), Man Ray, Le Retour \u00e0 la raison<\/em> (1923), <\/span>Ren\u00e9 Clair and Picabia, Entr’acte<\/em> (1924), Marcel Duchamp, Anemic cin\u00e9ma<\/em> (1926). L\u00e9ger was particularly interested in this young medium. He admired Sergei Eisenstein, Erich Von Stroheim and Chaplin. He produced several poster designs in 1922 for Abel Gance’s La Roue<\/em>, in which Blaise Cendrars took part as assistant director. <\/p>\n “Cinema turned my head. […] It all started when I saw the close-ups of Abel Gance’s La Roue<\/em>. It was the close-up that made my head spin. So I was determined to make a film.[8]<\/span><\/a>. ” <\/p>\n In 1924, he created the sets for Le Laboratoire in Marcel L’Herbier’s film L’Inhumaine<\/em>, in which Pierre Chareau and Robert Mallet-Stevens also collaborated. That same year, L\u00e9ger directed Le Ballet m\u00e9canique<\/em> with Dudley Murphy, an experimental film in which he affirmed the object’s plastic sufficiency. The “first film without a scenario”, Le Ballet m\u00e9canique<\/em> was first shown in Vienna in 1924, then in Paris in November. Following the film, objects took on a pre-eminent role in his painting. Most often isolated and depicted in close-up, they make up large still lifes painted between 1924 and 1927. In some of his paintings, L\u00e9ger takes up the compartmentalized structure of rectangular modules of unequal size, slicing up space like successive planes. In Les Quatre chapeaux<\/em> (Paris, Centre Pompidou, Mus\u00e9e National d’Art Moderne), the same object is represented in several aligned copies, reminiscent of the moving image. The use of close-ups is also found in his depictions of figures. <\/p>\n In 1924, with Am\u00e9d\u00e9e Ozenfant, Marie Laurencin and Alexandra Exter, L\u00e9ger founded the Acad\u00e9mie de l’art moderne<\/em>, located at 86 rue Notre-Dame-Des-Champs in Paris. Ozenfant taught there until 1928. In 1934, it became theAcad\u00e9mie de l’art contemporain<\/em>. Ozenfant further diversified his activity, producing cartons for carpets at the request of Marie Cuttoli, creator of Myrbor. His language of geometric shapes and flat colors was perfectly suited to transcription into wool. Around 1927, Robert Mallet-Stevens bought a long rug by L\u00e9ger (357 x 130 cm) for the grand salon of his private mansion (Paris, MAD). <\/p>\n At the Exposition Internationale des Arts D\u00e9coratifs et Industriels Modernes in Paris in 1925, L\u00e9ger painted murals for the winter garden hall of the French Embassy pavilion designed by Robert Mallet-Stevens (a pavilion created by the Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 des Artistes D\u00e9corateurs under the patronage of the Ministry of Fine Arts). He is also represented in Le Corbusier’s Pavillon de l’Esprit Nouveau, alongside works by Am\u00e9d\u00e9e Ozenfant, Georges Braque, Pablo Picasso, Jacques Lipchitz and Juan Gris: Fernand L\u00e9ger, Le Balustre<\/em>, 1925 (New York, MoMA). <\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/galerie-institut.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/realisations-pavillon-de-lesprit-nouveau-paris-france-1924-10.webp” alt=”realisations-pavillon-de-lesprit-nouveau-paris-france-1924-10″ title_text=”realisations-pavillon-de-lesprit-nouveau-paris-france-1924-10″ url=”https:\/\/www.fondationlecorbusier.fr\/oeuvre-architecture\/realisations-pavillon-de-lesprit-nouveau-paris-france-1924\/” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” width=”64%” module_alignment=”center” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font_size=”12px” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”]<\/p>\n Pavillon de l’Esprit Nouveau, <\/em>Photo: Marius Gavot \u00a9 ADAGP, Paris, 2024.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font_size=”16px” text_line_height=”1.8em” text_orientation=”justified” custom_padding=”0px||0px|||” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”]<\/p>\n In 1928-1929, the focus shifted to objects in space, heralded by Composition \u00e0 la feuille<\/em>, 1928 (Zurich, Kunstmuseum). Static objects now seem to float in space. L\u00e9ger retained the principle of the close-up. Mechanical workings give way to organic elements at a time when a biomorphic tendency characterizes creation. New types of objects, from the plant, animal and mineral worlds, enter the scene. He draws and paints discarded objects and natural elements: branches, roots, leaves, flints, stones. His language became more flexible, even when it came to the figure. The theme of dancers was omnipresent in 1929 and 1930. L\u00e9ger’s work was very topical at the time. In 1928, Alfred Flechtheim’s gallery presented his first solo show in Germany, a “brilliant exhibition”(Cahiers d’Art<\/em>, 1928, p.. 93). The same year, T\u00e9riade publishes the first monograph on L\u00e9ger, published by Cahiers d’Art<\/em>. In November 1930, Paul Rosenberg’s gallery devoted an exhibition to L\u00e9ger. <\/p>\n Invited by Sara and G\u00e9rald Murphy, L\u00e9ger visited New York for the first time in 1931, “the most colossal spectacle in the world”, he wrote. “New York has a natural beauty, like the elements of nature, like trees, mountains, flowers. This is its strength and variety[9]<\/span><\/a>. ” The Kunsthaus Zurich presented a retrospective of his work in 1933, and the same year Christian Zervos devoted an issue of Cahiers d’Art<\/em> to the artist’s work. In April 1934, Marie Cuttoli showed L\u00e9ger’s “Objets” in her rue Vignon gallery. <\/p>\n No doubt in reaction to the immensity of American space, in the mid-1930s L\u00e9ger’s compositions tended towards increasingly imposing dimensions, such as Composition aux deux parroquets<\/em>, 1935-1939, measuring 4 x 4.80 meters (Paris, Centre Pompidou, Mus\u00e9e National d’Art Moderne). During this period, well-finished compositions (reminiscent of advertising aesthetics) alternated with compositions of objects in space, with less strong contrasts between motifs. L\u00e9ger made a second trip to New York in 1935 for the retrospective of his work at the Museum of Modern Art and the Art Institute of Chicago. <\/p>\n In 1936, for the Exposition internationale des Arts et Techniques appliqu\u00e9s \u00e0 la Vie moderne, the French government commissioned several decorations: for the Solidarit\u00e9 nationale pavilion built by Robert Mallet-Stevens, for the Union des Artistes modernes (UAM) pavilion and for the Palais de la D\u00e9couverte. The artist creates six panels, including Le Transport des Forces<\/em> (Paris, <\/span>FNAC, on deposit at the Mus\u00e9e National Fernand L\u00e9ger, Biot, France). <\/span> ). That same year, he returned to set design for Serge Lifar’s ballet David triomphant<\/em>, with music by Rieti, which premiered at the Maison internationale des \u00e9tudiants universitaires theater in Paris on December 15, and was revived at the Paris Op\u00e9ra in May 1937. He also creates the sets and costumes for Naissance d’une cit\u00e9<\/em>, based on an argument by Jean-Richard Bloch. Arthur Honegger, Darius Milhaud and Jean Wiener composed the music. It’s an opera, a total spectacle combining theater, circus, music hall and ballet. <\/span><\/p>\n He returned to the United States in September 1938 to give a series of lectures at several American universities, including eight at Yales with Alvar Aalto and Am\u00e9d\u00e9e Ozenfant on “Color in Architecture”. During this stay, L\u00e9ger met Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller, who commissioned him to decorate one of the fireplaces in the grand salon of the apartment at 810 Fifth Avenue in New York, designed by architect Wallace K Harrison and decorated by Jean-Michel Frank. A decoration of similar shape and size, Le Chant<\/em> de Matisse (1938), frames the other fireplace in the living room directly opposite (Houston, Museum of Fine Arts). <\/span> The walls of the room are adorned with works by both artists and their peers, including a large still life by Picasso from 1931 , Pichet et coupe de fruits<\/em> (private collection). On his return to France, he painted two monumental compositions: Adam et Eve<\/em> and Composition aux deux parroquets<\/em> (Paris, Centre Pompidou, Mus\u00e9e National d’Art Moderne). <\/p>\n In October 1940, from Marseille, L\u00e9ger leaves occupied France for the United States. He was invited to teach at Mills College in California. He went there in the summer of 1941. The following year, MoMA bought Le Grand D\u00e9jeuner<\/em> from Paul Rosenberg. Along with many compatriots, the artist takes part in the Artists in Exile<\/em> exhibition organized by Pierre Matisse in his New York gallery. He creates a mural, Les Plongeurs<\/em>, for the dining room of architect Wallace K. Harrison’s house in Huntington, Long Island. Harrison in Huntington, Long Island. The dissociation of color and drawing that pervades his painting during his stay across the Atlantic is inspired by the lights of Broadway. <\/p>\n “In 1942 when I was in New York, I was struck by the Broadway advertising spotlights sweeping down the street. You’re standing there, talking to someone, and all of a sudden he turns blue. Then the color fades, another comes along and he turns red, yellow. This color, the color of the spotlight, is free: it’s in the space. I wanted to do the same thing in my paintings. [10]<\/span><\/a>.” <\/p>\n This principle characterizes the last period of L\u00e9ger’s work. Black rings counterbalance color. The artist travels to Canada in 1943. He discovered the town of Rouses Point near Lake Champlain, where he spent the summer. Enchanted, he returned regularly thereafter. He began the American Landscapes series. At an exhibition of his work in Montreal, he meets P\u00e8re Marie-Alain Couturier, a key figure in the post-war revival of religious art. <\/p>\n L\u00e9ger exhibits regularly (Chicago, Boston, New York, Quebec, Montreal) and gives lectures on several occasions in the United States and Canada. In March 1945, he takes part in the European Artists in America<\/em> exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. <\/p>\n The American world inspired him to create compositions using the discarded objects of industrial society among plant elements, as in Adieu New York<\/em>, 1946 (Paris, Centre Pompidou, Mus\u00e9e National d’Art Moderne), completed on his return to France.<\/p>\n He returned to France in 1946. His work from the war years was exhibited at the Galerie Louis Carr\u00e9 on avenue de Messine. In 1947, he took part in the inauguration of the Maison de la Pens\u00e9e fran\u00e7aise (House of French Thought) in aid of the Union nationale des intellectuels (National Union of Intellectuals). L\u00e9ger takes over the direction of the Acad\u00e9mie de Montmartre, created by Fernand Cormon, 104 boulevard de Clichy. His fluency in English attracts many demobilized GIs, including Kenneth Noland, Sam Francis and Ellsworth Kelly. <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font_size=”16px” text_line_height=”1.8em” text_orientation=”justified” custom_padding=”0px||0px|||” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”]<\/p>\n After the war, the protagonists of modern art were glorified as historical figures. Almost all of them were involved, or very involved, in public or private decorative projects. Since the 1930s, L\u00e9ger has been strongly committed to architectural painting, the interaction of color with architecture. The scope of his work changed in the years following the war. On the initiative of P\u00e8re Couturier, he participated with other artists in the decoration of the church of Notre-Dame-de-Toute-Gr\u00e2ce, designed by the architect Maurice Novarina on the Plateau d’Assy, a manifesto in terms of sacred art and modernity. L\u00e9ger designed a large mosaic for the building’s fa\u00e7ade. <\/p>\n A member of the Communist Party since the post-war years, he went to Wroclaw, Poland, at the end of August 1948, for the World Congress of Intellectuals for Peace. Picasso also attended with Paul \u00c9luard. In Les Loisirs – Hommage \u00e0 Louis David<\/em>, 1948-1949 (Paris, Centre Pompidou, Mus\u00e9e National d’Art Moderne), L\u00e9ger intends to return to direct art, understandable to all. He painted popular leisure activities and, with them, the paid vacations obtained in 1936 under the Front Populaire. The figures are the actors of history in the present. <\/p>\n In 1949, P\u00e8re Couturier called on him again for the Sacr\u00e9-Coeur church in Audincourt. L\u00e9ger designed seventeen stained-glass windows on the theme of the instruments of the Passion to frame the nave and choir. At the same time, Henri Matisse works on decorating the Rosary chapel of the Dominican Sisters in Vence. He went on to create other stained-glass windows, notably for the University of Caracas in 1953. <\/p>\n From 1950 onwards, L\u00e9ger explored polychrome ceramics in Biot at the studio of Roland Brice, one of his former students. He immediately associated this new practice with his preoccupation with mural art that could go beyond the limits of the painting. His first works were bas-reliefs. Ceramic sculptures, such as the large polychrome flowers, saw the light of day in 1952. <\/p>\n A major publisher of artists’ books alongside the magazine Verve<\/em>, T\u00e9riade published Le Cirque<\/em> with illustrations and text by L\u00e9ger in 1950, followed by La Ville<\/em> after the artist’s death in 1959. In March 1951, on the occasion of his seventieth birthday, the Louis Carr\u00e9 Gallery in New York paid tribute to L\u00e9ger with the 70th Anniversary<\/em> Exhibition. Exhibition after exhibition followed commission after commission. Architect W. K. Harrison commissioned L\u00e9ger to decorate the Great Hall of the Palais des Nations Unies in New York. In 1954, L\u00e9ger commissions stained glass and mosaics for the University of Caracas. He creates a mural for the dining room of Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler’s house in Saint-Hilaire. <\/p>\n L\u00e9ger bought a property in Biot in 1955, called Mas Saint-Andr\u00e9, to be closer to Roland Brice’s studio. The artist died shortly afterwards on August 17. The Mus\u00e9e National Fernand L\u00e9ger in Biot, built on the grounds of his property by architect Andr\u00e9 Svetchine, was inaugurated in 1960. <\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/galerie-institut.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/leger-fernand-bicyclette-tordue.jpg” title_text=”leger-fernand-bicyclette-tordue” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” width=”69%” module_alignment=”center” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”]<\/p>\n [1]<\/span><\/a> Interview with Andr\u00e9 Verdet, in Andr\u00e9 Verdet, Entretiens notes et \u00e9crits sur la peinture<\/em>, Nantes, \u00c9ditions du Petit v\u00e9hicule, 2001 [1978], p. 58<\/p>\n [2]<\/span><\/a> Letter from Paul C\u00e9zanne to \u00c9mile Bernard, Aix-en-Provence, April 15, 1904, quoted in \u00c9mile Bernard, Souvenirs sur Paul C\u00e9zanne et lettres<\/em>, Paris, [1920], p. 72.<\/p>\n [3]<\/span><\/a> Remarks by Fernand L\u00e9ger reported by Dora Vallier: “La vie fait l’\u0153uvre de Fernand L\u00e9ger. Propos de l’artiste recueillis par Dora Vallier”, Paris, Cahiers d’Art<\/em>, 1954, pp. 157.<\/p>\n [4]<\/span><\/a> Fernand L\u00e9ger, “Les R\u00e9alisations picturales actuelles” published in Les Soir\u00e9e de Paris<\/em>, no. 25, June 15, 1914, reprinted in Fonctions de la peinture<\/em>, Paris, Gallimard, 1997, p. 39.<\/p>\n [5]<\/span><\/a> Remarks by Fernand L\u00e9ger reported by Dora Vallier in Vallier 1954, op. cit <\/em>., p. 140.<\/p>\n [6]<\/span><\/a> Fernand L\u00e9ger’s writings are collected in Fernand L\u00e9ger, Fonctions de la peinture<\/em>, Paris, Deno\u00ebl-Gontier, 1965, Gallimard, 1997.<\/p>\n [7]<\/span><\/a> Fernand L\u00e9ger, “Comment je con\u00e7ois la figure”, Functions de la peinture<\/em>, Gallimard, 1997, p. 76. See also Vallier 1954, op. cit <\/em>., p.153.<\/p>\n [8]<\/span><\/a> Remarks by Fernand L\u00e9ger reported by Dora Vallier in Vallier 1954, op. cit <\/em>., p. 160.<\/p>\n