Caissons Argonne

Details

Fernand Leger (1881-1955)
Caissons Argonne
signed with initials, dated and inscribed 'F.L. 15 Argonne' (lower right)
pen and ink on paper
8 x 6 1/8 in. (20.3 x 15.5 cm.)
Drawn in Argonne, 1915

Provenance

B.C. Holland, Inc., Chicago.
Perls Galleries, New York.
Acquired from the above by the present owner.

Literature

J. Cassou and J. Leymarie, Fernand Léger, Drawings and Gouaches, London, 1973, p. 36, no. 24 (illustrated).

Exhibited

New York, Hirschl & Adler Galleries, and Williamstown, Massachussets, Williams College Museum of Art, Second Williams, Alumni Loan Exhibition, March-June 1976.

Lot Essay

Léger was called up for military service on 2 August 1914, the day after the German declaration of war on Russia that marked the beginning of the First World War. Trained during his peacetime service as an engineer and a sapper, he joined a unit of his old regiment and was deployed to the Argonne forest in early October. During the summer of 1915 the Argonne became the scene of the bloodiest fighting on the Western Front. The present drawing shows artillery wagons lining a village street, which Léger rendered in the shapes of cubes, cylinders and discs that he employed in his celebrated Contrastes de formes paintings of 1913-1914.

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