Lot Essay
In the last fifteen years of his life Léger concentrated his artistic effort on large compositions, built up from cycles of works in which the same motif or form was employed in different contexts. The present work is one such variation from the cycle of La Grande Parade. Léger first experimented with the composition in a charcoal drawing of 1940 before creating the definitive version in oil in 1954 which now hangs in the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York.
"In the many-figured compositions of his late period, Léger's art assumes the character of an epic pictorial world as simple as it is exuberant. He scatters figures and objects about with incredible prodigality. He tells us of divers in the port of Marseilles, construction workers on building sites, excursionists on weekend outings, acrobats in the circus. The austere spirit that imbues his pictures of the thirties is now replaced by a smiling gaiety whose exuberance is held in check only by the honest use of the medium. No longer content to display objects and figures, Léger now tells us about them. And he does so almost after the manner of the cartoon strip, using simple themes, simple lines, simple colours, and action that can be understood at a glance. In these works he achieves a naiveté of handling and expression that strikes one as the happy reward of his lifelong effort toward simplicity, a naiveté that combines extreme artistic maturity with the spirit of monumental art.
The people depicted in these works seem to have neither troubles nor problems - in a word, they seem to be happy....Joy is expressed in the artistic handling, as well as the subject matter - women on their bicycles, vacationers at their picnics, artistes in their studied postures...In his last great cycles Léger celebrated not so much work as freedom from work - leisure, enjoyment, relaxation. Extolling as they do the liberty, fraternity, and equality of the working people, these pictures in their totality are a grand apotheosis of liberty. - real and ideal in one...[Léger] became the prophet of a dreamed-of reality of free, equal, fraternal men and women which he situated in a possible future which was worth fighting - and painting - for" (W. Schmalenbach, Fernand Léger, New York, 1976, p. 39-40).
Gouaches from the Grande Parade series are held in several celebrated collections including the Musée Fernand Léger, Biot, and the Collection Aimé Maeght, Paris.
To be included in the catalogue raisonné of Léger's gouaches currently being prepared by Georges Bauquier.
"In the many-figured compositions of his late period, Léger's art assumes the character of an epic pictorial world as simple as it is exuberant. He scatters figures and objects about with incredible prodigality. He tells us of divers in the port of Marseilles, construction workers on building sites, excursionists on weekend outings, acrobats in the circus. The austere spirit that imbues his pictures of the thirties is now replaced by a smiling gaiety whose exuberance is held in check only by the honest use of the medium. No longer content to display objects and figures, Léger now tells us about them. And he does so almost after the manner of the cartoon strip, using simple themes, simple lines, simple colours, and action that can be understood at a glance. In these works he achieves a naiveté of handling and expression that strikes one as the happy reward of his lifelong effort toward simplicity, a naiveté that combines extreme artistic maturity with the spirit of monumental art.
The people depicted in these works seem to have neither troubles nor problems - in a word, they seem to be happy....Joy is expressed in the artistic handling, as well as the subject matter - women on their bicycles, vacationers at their picnics, artistes in their studied postures...In his last great cycles Léger celebrated not so much work as freedom from work - leisure, enjoyment, relaxation. Extolling as they do the liberty, fraternity, and equality of the working people, these pictures in their totality are a grand apotheosis of liberty. - real and ideal in one...[Léger] became the prophet of a dreamed-of reality of free, equal, fraternal men and women which he situated in a possible future which was worth fighting - and painting - for" (W. Schmalenbach, Fernand Léger, New York, 1976, p. 39-40).
Gouaches from the Grande Parade series are held in several celebrated collections including the Musée Fernand Léger, Biot, and the Collection Aimé Maeght, Paris.
To be included in the catalogue raisonné of Léger's gouaches currently being prepared by Georges Bauquier.