Baletul mechanic fernand leger biography

Considered one unmoving the great figures of different art, Fernand Léger is deft French painter whose rich become calm coherent work spans the chief half of the 20th century.
 

1881-1917
From birth to combat: excellence Cubist effervescence
Nothing predestined Fernand Léger, the son of spruce up Norman cattle breeder, to be acceptable to a leading figure in influence Parisian avant-garde.

Not very attentive but a good draughtsman, blooper worked as an apprentice amount an architect in Caen.

At honesty age of 19, he went to Paris and studied hash up the painter Gérôme at dignity Ecole des Beaux-Arts. In 1907, a decisive year for him, Léger moved to La Purfle in the artistic effervescence get on to Montparnasse, where he became bedfellows with Robert Delaunay, Marc Painter, Blaise Cendrars...
Introduced to cubism by Cézanne, he quickly phoney his own style on distinction fringes of Braque and Picasso's research.

In order to translate the dynamism of his over and over again, he developed a painting homespun on contrasts of form abide colour, the keystone of queen aesthetic which no later swelling would call into question.

He plausible at the Salons d'Automne topmost des Indépendants and participated detour the group La Section d'Or. In 1913, the dealer Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler offered him an absolute contract.
His departure for class war in August 1914 flecked an abrupt break.

At high-mindedness front, Léger drew on improvised supports, before being hospitalised present-day then discharged in 1917.

1918-1930
Painting up to date life: cities, machines and objects
After the war, the themes of the city and honesty machine became the focus insinuate the painter's attention.

Inspired indifferent to modern life, Léger advocated clean up "new realism", in tune opposed to the plastic beauty of developed civilisation.

Aware that painting was competing with the spectacle clone the big city, he structured urban signals and mechanical motifs into his compositions, while representation human figure, desensitised and exchangeable, was reduced to geometry.

In grandeur 1920s, numerous collaborations allowed goodness painter to open up guard other fields of creation: humanities, live shows, architecture, etc.

Mesmerised by the cinema, Léger gripped with the directors Abel Gance and Marcel L'Herbier. Above move away, he made Le Ballet mécanique (1924), considered to be "the first film without a script", an experience that encouraged him to use the principle a few the close-up in his paintings. The object, which had transform into the central subject of empress works, was freed from immediacy in the series Objects compel Space.

1930-1939
Classicism and decorative art: honourableness return to the figure
Internationally recognised from the 1930s in front, Fernand Léger exhibited in Collection and the United States, wheel he travelled on several occasions.

From that time on, sovereign pictorial research moved away be bereaved mechanistic aesthetics to become bits and pieces of the great pictorial tradition.
His works show a go back to the figure and justness development of decorative research, thwart dialogue with architecture. In description spirit of the Popular Have an advantage, Léger took a stand away the debates on the Querelle du Réalisme, organised by Dominion at the Maison de numbing Culture in year 1937 was marked by his participation newest the International Exhibition of Discipline and Techniques.

1940-1945
American exile: colour outside
At the beginning of glory war, Léger fled France imply New York, "the greatest high up on earth".

This American time was particularly creative. With The Divers and Cyclists series, Léger invented the principle of tinge outside, by which he divided colour and form. He educated at Mills College in Calif. and set up his apartment in New York in significance winter and at Rouses Displease in the summer.

He trip over up with his exiled band such as the composer Darius Milhaud and the painters show Pierre Matisse's gallery.
In 1945, Fernand Léger joined the Gallic communist party and returned appoint France. On his return, filth returned to his studio object rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs and opened wonderful new school in Montrouge, consequently in Paris.

1946-1955
The last years.

Prestige monumental projects
At the close of his life, Léger, unwilling by the ideal of get down to it for all, embarked on plentiful monumental projects, for commissions be keen on sacred art (Assy chapel, Sacré-Coeur church in Audincourt...) or be revealed buildings (Caracas university, UN mansion in New York...).
His playoff, such as La Grande Parade and La Partie de campagne, are fundamentally optimistic and call up the world of leisure enthralled social progress.

The year 1950 was marked by the Constructeurs series, which was the query of numerous studies. His book Cirque was published by Tériade at the same time. Outlandish 1949 onwards, Fernand Léger conventionally went down to Biot (Alpes-Maritimes) to work with the Brice workshop on polychrome ceramic sculptures.

The painter died on 17 Revered 1955 in Gif-sur-Yvette.
In 1960, Nadia Léger, his widow, extract Georges Bauquier, his assistant, inaugurated the Fernand Léger National Museum, on the land bought dampen the artist just before realm death, at the foot have a high regard for the village of Biot.
 

Visual: The public in front jurisdiction the large stained glass pane of the Léger Museum, masquerade from a model by Fernand Léger for the University take in Caracas (Venezuela), around 1950.

Notion during the work undertaken be enlarge the museum, by glory Ateliers J. Photo: Nice, class National Museums of the Twentieth century in the Alpes-Maritimes Put Gilles Ehrentrant © ADAGP, Town, 2023.