Fernand Léger (1881-1955) was a prominent French painter and printmaker initially
known for his association with the Cubists and the Puteaux Group which formed in
1912. Born in Normandy, he trained as an architect before moving to Paris in 1900,
where he studied painting at the Académie Julian with Jean-Léon Gérôme and other
Classicists (after facing rejection from the École des Beaux-Arts) and spending three
uninspired years studying academic painting in the Impressionist style (most of his
paintings from this early period he later destroyed). He did not become truly inspired
to develop his own style until he saw the retrospective of Cézanne’s work in 1907.
This prompted him to begin incorporating geometric planes throughout his work.
In 1909, Léger moved to Montparnasse in Paris and began fraternizing with other
avant-garde artists such as Archipenko and Chagall, all the while further developing
his personal form of Cubism (which critics called “Tubism”), employing abstract
cylindrical, conical and curvilinear shapes. From 1911 to 1914, he was included in the
historic Cubist exhibitions of the Salon d’Automne and Salon des Indépendants with
Jean Metzinger, Robert Delaunay, the Duchamp brothers, Henri Le Fauconnier, Albert
Gleizes, Francis Picabia and others. He was also included in the avant-garde Pateaux
Group and Section d’Or exhibitions. Léger’s evolution to his later, more figurative
style, for which he is perhaps best celebrated today, places him as a forerunner of
Pop Art.
The Armory Show was Léger’s American début; he had three oil paintings in the
exhibition, including the monumental, six-foot tall
Study for Three Portraits
, 1910-11,
now in the Milwaukee Art Museum. All of his works were hung in Gallery I, the Cubist
room or “The Chamber of Horrors,” and were reflective of Léger’s Cubist style.
In 1914, he served in the French Army in World War I for two years, almost
succumbing to a mustard gas attack in 1916. During his convalescence, he painted
The Card Players
, 1917, which featured robot-like figures, surely reflective of his
inhumane, horrific war experiences, and thereby ushering in his “mechanical period.”
In 1931, he made his first voyage to America, visiting New York and Chicago. In 1935,
the Museum of Modern Art, New York, presented an exhibition of his work, and in
1938, he was commissioned to decorate Nelson Rockefeller’s New York apartment.
Léger taught at Yale University during World War II, returning to France in 1945 and
joining the Communist Party following the war.
