Fernand Léger: Paintings, Watercolors, and Drawings
September 16 to November 8, 1995
Louis Stern Fine Arts is hosting the first major Southern California exhibition of the work of Fernand Léger. The show include oil paintings representative of all phases of the artist’s career, as well as more intimate watercolors and drawings.
Léger was an artist in love with his own zeitgeist, a man inspired by the factory, the machine, automobiles, and the cinema. In his painting, he expressed his interpretation of the new aesthetic; the dynamic balance of simple, solid forms. From Cezanne, Léger learned to apply elements of weight, volume, and mass to the two-dimensional plane. He brought this lesson with him into the new machine age, as he sought to emulate the driving tempo of modern life.
Born February 4, 1881 in Argentan, France, Léger lived on a farm until 1897. At the beginning of the century, he moved to Paris and studied at the Ecole des Arts Décoratifs. In 1908, Léger settled in La Ruche, the artist’s commune where Laurens, Lipchitz, Archipenko, Chagall, Soutine, and Delaunay made their home. Around the same time, he exhibited at the Salon d’Automne and met Henri Rousseau.
In the early 1920’s, Léger became involved in a number of film projects. He was fascinated with the clarity and starkness of the cinema, though he had no use for the narrative or the sentimental aspects of film. It was the boldness of the enlarged “projected image” which intrigued him, and which he captured in his monumental figures. Following exhibitions in New York and at the Brooklyn Museum, Léger first travelled to the United States in the 1930’s. In 1938, he decorated the apartment of Nelson A. Rockefeller, and taught at Yale University after his 1940 exile to the United States.
Léger continued to travel between Europe and the United States, enjoying major retrospectives in museums throughout the world. He died at Gif-sur-Yvette in 1955, leaving behind one of the most important artistic legacies of the 20th century. His works can be found in all major museums throughout the world.
Fernand Léger: Paintings, Watercolors, and Drawings will be on view during gallery hours: Tuesday through Friday, 10am-6pm and Saturdays, 11am-5pm. Parking is available on the street and in the Apcoa parking lot on Melrose Avenue, west of Almont.