Renowned as one of the foremost figures of Modern Art, Fernand Léger’s artistic journey unfolded across the first half of the 20th century. Son of a Norman cattle breeders, Léger’s foray into the realm of art began with an apprenticeship in an architect’s studio in Caen.
At the age of 19, he moved to Paris, where he enrolled as a free auditor in painting classes at the École des Beaux-Arts. In 1907, he moved to the Montparnasse district, where he formed enduring friendships with artists such as Robert Delaunay, Marc Chagall, and Blaise Cendrars. He approached Cubism inspired by the works of Paul Cézanne and quickly shaped his distinctive style alongside the groundbreaking experiments of Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso. His oeuvre became characterized by dynamic contrasts between shapes and colors. He exhibited at the Salons d’Automne and the Salon des Indépendants and simultaneously participated in the group La Section d’Or. Returning to artistic activity after World War I, he turned his focus towards urban landscapes and the mechanical marvels of the industrial age. Embracing a form of nouveau réalisme, Léger exalted the aesthetic allure of industrial civilization, portraying the human figure as a composition of elemental geometric shapes.
During the 1920s, his many collaborations allowed him to open up to other fields of creation such as literature, entertainment and architecture. Fascinated by film, Léger worked with directors Abel Gance and Marcel L’Herbier. Above all, he directed Le Ballet mécanique (1924), considered the first film without a screenplay.
Léger started gaining international recognition in the 1930s, with numerous exhibitions held in Europe and the United States. In those years he gradually abandoned the philosophy of the machine and modern life in favor of the great themes of the pictorial tradition. In 1937, he took part in the Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques.
At the beginning of World War II, Léger left Paris for New York. The American period was particularly creative. With the series of the Plongeurs and that of the Cyclistes, made during these very years, Léger reversed the principle of color on the outside, thus continuing to dissociate it from forms. During his American period, which ended in 1945, Léger taught in California at Mills College and simultaneously worked in his winter studio in New York and his summer studio in Rouses Point. He also found some exiled friends such as composer Darius Milhaud and the painters gathered in Pierre Matisse’s gallery. In the last years of his life, Léger was driven by a desire to make works that could be enjoyed by anyone. He embarked on monumental commissions, such as the sacred art projects of the Chapel d’Assy or the Church of the Sacré-Cœur d’Audincourt. At the same time, he turned to public buildings, such as the University of Caracas or the UN Building in New York. The same desire for collegiality and optimism also inspired the series of these years as The Grand Parade and the La Partie de campagne. The series of the Constructeurs began in 1950 and was the subject of continuous study.
From 1949, Fernand Léger stayed regularly in Boit (Alpes-Maritimes) to work with Roland and Claude Brice’s atelier on polychrome ceramic sculptures. In 1955, the year of his death, the artist purchased land nearby. There, his widow Nadia Léger, and his assistant Georges Bauquier opened the Musée National Fernand Léger in 1960. Léger’s monographic museum is the first in France to be installed in an architecture specifically designed to contain and collect an artist’s work. It is also the first museum established on private initiative and operating with entirely private means. In 1967, Nadia Léger and Georges Bauquier donated the building, park and more than 300 works to the state. Following subsequent acquisitions, the museum now holds more than 450 works by the artist, including paintings, sculptures, drawings, films, theater sets, tapestries, mosaics and ceramics.
