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Lot Essay
The 1920s marked a transformative period in Fernand Léger’s career. During this decade, his art evolved toward a calmer, more balanced aesthetic—one defined by harmony and rhythm rather than the dissonance and mechanical energy that characterized his earlier work. As Douglas Cooper observed, “[Léger] exchanged the monumental for the living. The architectural elements disappeared and were replaced by scattered objects setting up a rhythm between themselves…The objects are related to each other by means of carefully controlled chromatic values, by similar or opposing rhythms and by the use of lines of direction which weave in and out through the whole composition. Léger places his objects at just the right distance from each other: they are held there by virtue of the laws of harmony and rhythm” (Fernand Léger et le nouvel espace, London, 1949, pp. xiv–xv).
Painted in 1929, Composition (La Négresse) belongs to Léger’s “Objects in Space” series, which preoccupied him throughout the latter part of the decade. In this important body of work, Léger explored the isolation of individual forms within arrangements of abstract and semi-abstract shapes. In the present composition, a group of disparate objects appears against a monochrome gray background. As Léger explained: “I felt that I could not place an object on a table without lessening its value as an object... [Instead] I took the object and eliminated the table. I put this object in the air, without perspective and with no supports. Then I had to liberate colour to a greater extent” (quoted in G. Néret, Fernand Léger, London, 1993, p. 142).
Within these works, some objects remain immediately recognizable—such as the key and leaf seen here, both recurring motifs in Léger’s art of the period—while others verge on abstraction. The figure of the woman, for instance, merges into the surrounding black forms. Referenced in the title, she serves as the focal point of the composition, depicted in profile with one leg extended behind her. Her long hair, rendered in Léger’s signature undulating lines, recalls the rhythmic curves seen in works like Composition aux Sujets (1930, Los Angeles County Museum of Art).
Léger referred to the figure as “La Négresse,” a term commonly used in 1920s and 1930s France to describe Black women. The title likely reflects the broader fascination with African and African American culture that permeated Parisian art and performance during this period. Among the most influential cultural imports of the decade was La Revue Nègre, which debuted at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in October 1925. Léger himself reportedly suggested the idea for such a production to André Daven, the theater’s administrator—an indication of his close ties to Paris’s burgeoning jazz scene. The show starred singer and dancer Josephine Baker, whose electrifying performance won international acclaim and established her as a symbol of modernity and Black artistry in interwar France.
Painted in 1929, Composition (La Négresse) belongs to Léger’s “Objects in Space” series, which preoccupied him throughout the latter part of the decade. In this important body of work, Léger explored the isolation of individual forms within arrangements of abstract and semi-abstract shapes. In the present composition, a group of disparate objects appears against a monochrome gray background. As Léger explained: “I felt that I could not place an object on a table without lessening its value as an object... [Instead] I took the object and eliminated the table. I put this object in the air, without perspective and with no supports. Then I had to liberate colour to a greater extent” (quoted in G. Néret, Fernand Léger, London, 1993, p. 142).
Within these works, some objects remain immediately recognizable—such as the key and leaf seen here, both recurring motifs in Léger’s art of the period—while others verge on abstraction. The figure of the woman, for instance, merges into the surrounding black forms. Referenced in the title, she serves as the focal point of the composition, depicted in profile with one leg extended behind her. Her long hair, rendered in Léger’s signature undulating lines, recalls the rhythmic curves seen in works like Composition aux Sujets (1930, Los Angeles County Museum of Art).
Léger referred to the figure as “La Négresse,” a term commonly used in 1920s and 1930s France to describe Black women. The title likely reflects the broader fascination with African and African American culture that permeated Parisian art and performance during this period. Among the most influential cultural imports of the decade was La Revue Nègre, which debuted at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in October 1925. Léger himself reportedly suggested the idea for such a production to André Daven, the theater’s administrator—an indication of his close ties to Paris’s burgeoning jazz scene. The show starred singer and dancer Josephine Baker, whose electrifying performance won international acclaim and established her as a symbol of modernity and Black artistry in interwar France.