Le Fumeur

Drawn by Fernand Léger circa 1921, Le Fumeur is a striking rendering of a sophisticated seated figure. Positioned in front of a backdrop of crisply interlocking geometric forms, the titular protagonist’s cigar rests in his right hand, its smoke billowing into a plume of amorphic clouds, partially obscuring the man’s face. With his still visible right eye, he stares piercingly out at the viewer. He sports a highly formal style of attire; a waistcoat is glimpsed from beneath a notched lapel dinner jacket, while a top hat is cradled on his lap. Enthroned on a low-backed armchair, with his right leg draped over his left, and his left forearm laying across the armrest, he exudes a suave air of dignity. Yet, Le Fumeur pulsates with a thrumming sense of mystery and anticipation, evoked by the gentleman’s imposing, statuesque form, his direct, unflinching gaze, and the clenched grip of his left hand on the arm of his chair. This feeling of tension is amplified by Léger’s fragmentary, geometric, construction of overall form and figure, through which he imbued the composition with a palpable dynamism. Retained in the artist’s collection throughout his life, Le Fumeur was inherited by Léger’s second wife Nadia. A testament to its importance, it was exhibited on long-term loan to the Musée National Fernand Léger in Biot.

Le Fumeur dates to a key transitional period in Léger’s oeuvre, as the artist’s style evolved through his so-called Mechanical Period, and he began to return to the human form. This transformation was Léger’s response to the rappel à l’ordre – the renaissance of classical ideals and figuration in visual art that sparked in Paris in the wake of the First World War. He remained steadfast to his basic principle of seeking contrasts in forms, but he now pursued these ideas in a different context, in which harmony and order supplanted dissonance. Léger became increasingly interested in the value of tradition, and he now strove in his art for the permanence of the classical and humanistic ideals that informed the great and enduring art of the past. He was keen on making his own significant statement, a monumental art, in which he would unite the order of classicism with modern life. The present work encapsulates this harmonisation of tradition and modernity; the protagonist’s stately dress reflecting the former, while the machine-like precision of the tubular cylinders and planar geometric forms that constitute his person invoke the latter. The crisp delineation of the backdrop, and the intersecting horizontal and vertical panels are redolent of the De Stijl works of Piet Mondrian, as well as eliciting comparison with blueprints of industrial design.

Over the course of the 1920s, Léger increasingly championed the concept of objecthood, exalting the formal plastic values of each object. His interest was galvanised by the development of cinema and film-making technology, which enabled everyday objects and items to be viewed with a fresh perspective. Léger was particularly struck by the 'close-up', and felt that there was a compelling potency in the individualisation of a fragment of the larger whole. Reflecting on the revelatory capacity of cinema, the artist declared, ‘Before I saw it in film, I did not know what a hand was! The object by itself is capable of becoming something absolute, moving, and dramatic’ (quoted in: Fernand Léger, 1911-1924: The Rhythm of Modern Life, exh. cat., Munich, 1994, p. 165). Le Fumeur heralds the artist’s radical translation of the power of cinema into graphic art, and, as Léger deconstructs the human protagonist into an assembly of unique parts, he unveils the dramatic potential of the object, exploring the relationship between the animate and the inanimate.