FERNAND LÉGER (1881-1955)

Nature morte tricolore beckons its viewers’ attention at first glance. The work is a true tour de force of colour, energy and lively harmony, a perfect example of the creativity and boldness intrinsic to Léger’s work.  In this picture, colour is applied in broad, flat sections of vibrant primary colours, a technique favoured by the artist. Two large geometric shapes, painted with unmodulated blue and red pigments, are depicted underneath overlapping green and white circular shapes. These forms are delineated with thin yet noticeable black outlines that unite the composition and enhance its graphic and clear-cut character. The resulting image is one of sharp and ostensible rhythm – almost as if these forms were dancing with one another in perfect harmony against an endless warm and inviting background.

The artist’s choice of employing blues, whites and reds is particularly significant: to any Frenchman like Léger, this palette instantly calls to mind the national French flag, the ‘Tricolore’ of the work’s title. The placement of these colours within the composition is clearly evocative of the national flag - there is no doubt that, when painting this picture, the artist must have felt a profound sense of identification with his homeland. Léger’s interpretation of the flag fully reflects his artistic vision: his ‘Tricolore’ is unquestionably a profoundly dynamic, vibrant, and joyful one.

The energy and joyfulness that characterised Léger’s life between 1937 and 1938 are palpable in this work. These were incredibly successful and prolific years for the artist: in 1938, he received a particularly important commission, having been asked to decorate the apartment of Nelson Rockefeller in New York. During this time, he took several trips to the United States, spending his days among stimulating friends such as architect Wallace K. Harrison and writer John Dos Passos, frequent sources of inspiration for his work.

In 1937, the year prior to the completion of the present picture, the artist was asked how he would have prepared Paris for the upcoming Exposition Internationale if he had been in charge of its organisation: he replied that he dreamed of a ‘luminous, translucid atmosphere: Greece on the rivers of the Seine’ with ‘luminous lines running after one another in the streets’. He would have conceived ‘the exhibition itself as polychrome: a yellow square, a red, blue boulevard‘. He also would have changed the colours of tramways and buses and even of the Tour Eiffel (F. Léger, ‘Réponse à une Enquete: Que feriez-vous, si vous aviez à organiser l’Exposition de 1937?’, in Vu, Paris, no. 387, August 1935, p. 1102). It is within this animated and bustling phase of the artist’s biography that the present work needs to be interpreted.

During this period, Léger’s artistic production showed a distinct move towards abstraction, incorporating and developing the lessons learned during his cubist years and during the 1920s’ ‘return to order’. Having largely experimented with these styles, Léger had managed to establish his own artistic voice, stemming in part from these past influences. By 1938, when this work was executed, Léger had developed a profound interest in the depiction of abstract and geometric forms often shown in conjunction with softer, almost biomorphic shapes. Seven years before the completion of the present picture, the artist seemed aware of both the inherent and commercial value of abstract art, writing that: ‘Abstract art is the most important, the most interesting of the different plastic trends that have developed during the last twenty-five years. It is definitely not an experimental curiosity; it is an art that has an intrinsic value. It is an art that has come into being and that responds to a demand, for a certain number of collectors are enthusiastic about it, proving that this tendency exists in life.’ (F. Léger, ‘De I'Art Abstrait’ in Cahiers d'Art, vol. 6, no. 3, 1931, pp. 151-152.)