Plongeurs

In September 1940, while waiting to embark on a ship that would take him to Lisbon, from which he would thereafter sail to New York, Léger watched some dockers diving off the quay and swimming in the harbor during a break from their labors. This became the impetus for the artist's Plongeurs series, which he painted in America in 1942. Léger later wrote, "I was immediately impressed by the trajectory of their bronzed bodies in the sunlight and the water. A wonderful, fluid movement. It was those divers who set off all the rest, the acrobats, the cyclists, the musicians." (quoted in J. Cassou and J. Leymarie, Fernand Leger Drawings and Gouaches, London 1973 p. 151).