Lot Essay
The present work is related to the two versions of La Grande Parade, 1952 and 1954 (see note to lot 126). The two dancing girls in the foreground appear on the stage in La Grande Parade. The two figures in the rear are acrobats who also feature in the oil painting.
The effect of this compact, knot-like composition, in which figures and limbs form a helter-skelter counterpoint, is derived directly from the Plongeurs (Divers) series which Lger painted in New York during the 1940s. The idea had actually occurred to Lger while he was still in France as he observed bathers diving off the docks in Marseilles. Later in New York he witnessed a scene at a swimming pool, where instead of a handful of bathers there were several hundred. The Plongeurs series were critical in Lger's development; he later wrote that "they triggered off everything: acrobats, cyclists, musicians. His work afterwards was to become more pliant, less rigid." (quoted in P. de Francia, Fernand Lger, New Haven, 1983, p. 248)
The present work was dedicated and presented to Sergei Youtkevich (1904-1985), a Soviet film director whose work was widely admired in leftist circles in France.
The effect of this compact, knot-like composition, in which figures and limbs form a helter-skelter counterpoint, is derived directly from the Plongeurs (Divers) series which Lger painted in New York during the 1940s. The idea had actually occurred to Lger while he was still in France as he observed bathers diving off the docks in Marseilles. Later in New York he witnessed a scene at a swimming pool, where instead of a handful of bathers there were several hundred. The Plongeurs series were critical in Lger's development; he later wrote that "they triggered off everything: acrobats, cyclists, musicians. His work afterwards was to become more pliant, less rigid." (quoted in P. de Francia, Fernand Lger, New Haven, 1983, p. 248)
The present work was dedicated and presented to Sergei Youtkevich (1904-1985), a Soviet film director whose work was widely admired in leftist circles in France.