Maquette pour couverture d’un livre

Details

FERNAND LEGER (1881-1955)
Maquette pour couverture d’un livre
signed and inscribed 'FLéger Dessins de Guerre 1915-1916' (in the center); inscribed again 'Cette maquette est trop forte pour ce livre' (along the lower edge)
gouache and brush and India ink over pencil on folded sheet
Image size: 12 x 7 3⁄8 in. (30.5 x 18.6 cm.)
Sheet size: 12 x 14 ¾ in. (30.5 x 37.2 cm.)
Executed circa 1954-1955

Provenance

Douglas Cooper, London and Argilliers (acquired from the artist).
William A. McCarty-Cooper, London and Los Angeles (by descent from the above).
Acquired from the estate of the above by the present owner, May 1992.

Exhibited

Basel, Kunstmuseum; London, The Tate Gallery and Philadelphia Museum of Art, Douglas Cooper and the Masters of Cubism, November 1987-January 1988, p. 209, no. 48 (illustrated in color, p. 109; dated 1956).
Houston, The Museum of Fine Arts and Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Picasso, Braque, Gris, Léger: Douglas Cooper Collecting Cubism, October 1990-April 1991, p. 62, no. 50 (dated 1956).

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Lot Essay

This works is the original maquette for the book Fernand Léger: Dessins de Guerre, 1915-1916 edited by Douglas Cooper and published by Berggruen & Cie. in 1956. In 1954, Cooper commissioned Léger to paint Trapeze Artists to cover a blank wall in the stairwell of his house, the Château de Castille at Argilliers in the south of France. Around this time, he encouraged the artist to publish this limited edition of drawings of arms and munitions manufacturing in World War I, with machine parts as his primary subject matter.

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