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Lot Essay
In Fernand Léger’s 1921 composition Les Confidences (Les deux femmes au bouquet), two elegant young women huddle close together, their forms almost conjoined as they share a private moment. While one figure faces us head on, the other appears in profile, leaning in to her companion to whisper a secret in her ear. Though the rest of the canvas is filled with a dynamic play of colorful, geometric forms that describe a richly appointed interior setting—replete with house plants and a piano—our focus is drawn to the interaction between the two women, a testament to their connection and kinship. Les Confidences (Les deux femmes au bouquet) was included in the seminal retrospective of Léger’s work at the Musée national d’art moderne in Paris in the fall of 1949, and was gifted by the artist to his sister-in-law Yvette Lohy around 1950, shortly after the death of his first wife, Jeanne. Inscribed on the reverse “To Yvette, in memory of her sister Jeanne,” the painting is a testament to the enduring bond the two sisters shared, which Léger witnessed time and again throughout his thirty-year marriage to Jeanne.
Executed in Léger’s signature figurative style of the early 1920s, Les Confidences (Les deux femmes au bouquet) reveals the significant aesthetic changes that were occurring in his painting following the end of the First World War, as the artist navigated the many cross-currents of post-war modernism that were redefining the artistic avant-garde. Having served on the front lines during the War, Léger returned to painting with a bold new determination after “three years without touching a paintbrush” (Léger, quoted in C. Green, Léger and the Avant-Garde, New Haven, 1976, p. 96). The artist viewed the Great War as an irrefutable sign that society had broken with the outworn values of the past, and was now entering a new and genuinely modern reality. “When I was discharged I could benefit from these hard years,” he later explained. “I reached a decision, without compromising in any way I would model in pure and local color, using large volumes. I could do without tasteful arrangements, delicate shading, and dead backgrounds. I was no longer fumbling for the key, I had it” (quoted in C. Green, Léger and Purist Paris, exh. cat., Tate, London, 1970, p. 85).
At this time, the rappel à l’ordre (return to order) was sweeping through the European art world, promoting a classical aesthetic with a renewed emphasis on clarity, purity and monumentality. Léger was initially wary of these developments—his art, like his politics, was decidedly forward-looking and embraced the contemporary, meaning he was avowedly opposed to anything that felt retrograde. However, his thinking began to shift in 1920, as Léger realized certain aspects of the rappel à l’ordre may serve his own pictorial agenda. As a result, his paintings from the opening years of the decade sought to meld tradition and modernity in a single image, creating a concise synthesis of seemingly divergent idioms. Declaring it “an epoch of contrasts,” Léger explained that with these works, he was “consistent with my own time” (quoted in E.F. Fry, ed., Fernand Léger: The Functions of Painting, New York, 1973, p. 30)
Concurrently, the Musée du Louvre and other Parisian museums were returning their famed collections from war-time storage, granting the public access once again to artworks by the great masters. Exposure to these historical riches renewed Léger’s interest in the art of the past, granting him a greater awareness of painterly tradition. Wandering through the museums, rediscovering their artistic treasures first-hand, he found himself drawn to investigating the human figure once again and it quickly became the central focus of his work. In particular genre painting, centered on the everyday occurrences of ordinary life, which the Impressionists and successive modernists had dismissed, became a key touchstone for his creative vision. Provided that its elements were drawn strictly from modern life, Léger argued, these subjects could still offer an interesting and fruitful subject for a painter of the twentieth century.
In Les Confidences (Les deux femmes au bouquet), the two young women are dressed in simple, structured gowns, their smooth features and repetitive forms stacked together like mass-produced machine parts. Standing side-by-side, they appear almost as a single entity, their bodies overlapping and converging, so that the boundary between the two remains uncertain, reinforcing the intimacy and strength of their bond. Between them, they clutch a small posy of flowers, both holding one hand on the stems between them, perhaps a gift from one to the other. Léger had first explored this subject of a female figure holding a colorful, yet modest bouquet the previous year in another oil painting, La femme au bouquet (Bauquier, no. 252; Private collection). In Les Confidences and its pendant painting Les deux femmes au bouquet (Bauquier, no. 297; Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lyon), he expands the scene to include a companion. In each of these compositions, the monochrome surfaces of the figures are contrasted against the lushly vibrant domestic interior surrounding them, filled with brightly colored patterns and decor, stylized furniture and accessories, and a regularly-spaced, striped floor. The resulting play of flat, geometric elements offers an intriguing contrast to the statuesque central figures, focusing our attention on their connection and further emphasizing their closeness as they pass the flowers, and their secrets, between them.
Executed in Léger’s signature figurative style of the early 1920s, Les Confidences (Les deux femmes au bouquet) reveals the significant aesthetic changes that were occurring in his painting following the end of the First World War, as the artist navigated the many cross-currents of post-war modernism that were redefining the artistic avant-garde. Having served on the front lines during the War, Léger returned to painting with a bold new determination after “three years without touching a paintbrush” (Léger, quoted in C. Green, Léger and the Avant-Garde, New Haven, 1976, p. 96). The artist viewed the Great War as an irrefutable sign that society had broken with the outworn values of the past, and was now entering a new and genuinely modern reality. “When I was discharged I could benefit from these hard years,” he later explained. “I reached a decision, without compromising in any way I would model in pure and local color, using large volumes. I could do without tasteful arrangements, delicate shading, and dead backgrounds. I was no longer fumbling for the key, I had it” (quoted in C. Green, Léger and Purist Paris, exh. cat., Tate, London, 1970, p. 85).
At this time, the rappel à l’ordre (return to order) was sweeping through the European art world, promoting a classical aesthetic with a renewed emphasis on clarity, purity and monumentality. Léger was initially wary of these developments—his art, like his politics, was decidedly forward-looking and embraced the contemporary, meaning he was avowedly opposed to anything that felt retrograde. However, his thinking began to shift in 1920, as Léger realized certain aspects of the rappel à l’ordre may serve his own pictorial agenda. As a result, his paintings from the opening years of the decade sought to meld tradition and modernity in a single image, creating a concise synthesis of seemingly divergent idioms. Declaring it “an epoch of contrasts,” Léger explained that with these works, he was “consistent with my own time” (quoted in E.F. Fry, ed., Fernand Léger: The Functions of Painting, New York, 1973, p. 30)
Concurrently, the Musée du Louvre and other Parisian museums were returning their famed collections from war-time storage, granting the public access once again to artworks by the great masters. Exposure to these historical riches renewed Léger’s interest in the art of the past, granting him a greater awareness of painterly tradition. Wandering through the museums, rediscovering their artistic treasures first-hand, he found himself drawn to investigating the human figure once again and it quickly became the central focus of his work. In particular genre painting, centered on the everyday occurrences of ordinary life, which the Impressionists and successive modernists had dismissed, became a key touchstone for his creative vision. Provided that its elements were drawn strictly from modern life, Léger argued, these subjects could still offer an interesting and fruitful subject for a painter of the twentieth century.
In Les Confidences (Les deux femmes au bouquet), the two young women are dressed in simple, structured gowns, their smooth features and repetitive forms stacked together like mass-produced machine parts. Standing side-by-side, they appear almost as a single entity, their bodies overlapping and converging, so that the boundary between the two remains uncertain, reinforcing the intimacy and strength of their bond. Between them, they clutch a small posy of flowers, both holding one hand on the stems between them, perhaps a gift from one to the other. Léger had first explored this subject of a female figure holding a colorful, yet modest bouquet the previous year in another oil painting, La femme au bouquet (Bauquier, no. 252; Private collection). In Les Confidences and its pendant painting Les deux femmes au bouquet (Bauquier, no. 297; Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lyon), he expands the scene to include a companion. In each of these compositions, the monochrome surfaces of the figures are contrasted against the lushly vibrant domestic interior surrounding them, filled with brightly colored patterns and decor, stylized furniture and accessories, and a regularly-spaced, striped floor. The resulting play of flat, geometric elements offers an intriguing contrast to the statuesque central figures, focusing our attention on their connection and further emphasizing their closeness as they pass the flowers, and their secrets, between them.