Frankrig · 1881–1955
Joseph Fernand Henri Léger var en fransk maler, skulptør og filmmager.
Joseph Fernand Henri Léger (født 4. februar 1881, død 17. august 1955) var en fransk maler, skulptør og filmmager.
Hans billeder kan ses på Fondation Maeght ved Saint-Paul de Vence i Provence i Frankrig.
Léger var aktiv som underviser i mange år, og danske malere modtog undervisning af ham: Blandt andre Franciska Clausen (1899-1986), Rita Kernn-Larsen (1904-98), Asger Jorn (1914-73) og Ole Høst (1915-43).
Franciska Clausen var i flere år Fernand Légers elskerinde.
Fødsel · 4. februar 1881
Argentan
Uddannelse · 1890–1899
College in Argentan and architectural training
In 1890–1896 Léger attends the college in Argentan and a church school in Tinchebray, and in 1897–1899 trains as an architect. His father, Henri Armand Léger, a cattle breeder, died a few years after his son's birth; his mother, Marie Adèle Dunon, lived on her farm in Lisores.
Uddannelse · after 1903
Rejected by the Beaux-Arts and “three empty and useless years”
After his service Léger tries to enter the École des Beaux-Arts, is rejected, and enrolls at the School of Decorative Arts instead. He nevertheless attends the Beaux-Arts as a non-enrolled student, studying with Gérôme and Ferrier, and also the Académie Julian; he later described these three years as “empty and useless”.
Karriere · 1904–1907
A studio with André Mare; “My Mother's Garden”
In 1904–1907 Léger shares a studio with his fellow countryman André Mare, working for an architect and as a retoucher for a photographer. He begins to work seriously as a painter only at 25; from this period, marked by the influence of Impressionism, survives “My Mother's Garden” (1905), one of the few early paintings he did not later destroy.
Bopæl · 1908–1909
La Ruche and Montparnasse: Archipenko, Lipchitz, Chagall, Rousseau
In 1908 Léger settles in La Ruche (other accounts have him moving to Montparnasse in 1909) and meets Alexander Archipenko, Laurens and Jacques Lipchitz, later Chaïm Soutine, Marc Chagall and Robert Delaunay and their guests (Max Jacob, Apollinaire, Raynal, Blaise Cendrars); some become his friends. In 1909 he also meets Henri Rousseau, “le Douanier”, whose frontal compositions, firm contours and smoothly blended colours his own work of the 1920s frequently recalls.
Udstilling
The 1910 Salon d'Automne: “Nudes in the Forest”
In 1910 Léger exhibits at the Salon d'Automne in the same room (salle VIII) as Jean Metzinger and Henri Le Fauconnier. The major painting of these years is “Nudes in the Forest” (1909–1910), in which he develops a personal form of Cubism that critics called “Tubism” for its emphasis on cylindrical forms.
Udstilling
The “Cubists' room” at the Salon des Indépendants
In 1911 the hanging committee of the Salon des Indépendants places the painters identified as Cubists together — Metzinger, Gleizes, Le Fauconnier, Delaunay and Léger; in room 41, nicknamed the “Cubists' room”, Léger shows “Nudes in the Forest”. It is the first time Cubism is revealed to the general public as an organized group; with the same group Léger also exhibits in Brussels.
Møde
Friendship with Le Corbusier, “The Mechanic” and “The Great Lunch”
In 1920, at the founding of the journal “L'Esprit nouveau”, Léger befriends Le Corbusier, who remains a lifelong friend. In the same year he paints the canvases “The Mechanic” and “The Great Lunch”, and from this year he exhibits at the Indépendants for many years.
Karriere · 1922–1924
Stage and screen: the Swedish Ballet and “L'Inhumaine”
In 1922 Léger designs sets, costumes and the curtain for “Skating Rink” (music by Milhaud) for Rolf de Maré's Swedish Ballet, and in 1923 for the ballet “La Création du monde” (Milhaud, libretto by Cendrars). In 1923–24 he designs the laboratory set for Marcel L'Herbier's film “L'Inhumaine”.
Rejse · September – December 1931 · New York City
First trip to the United States: New York and Chicago
Léger spends the summer of 1931 in Austria with his friends the Murphys and from September to December makes his first trip to the United States, to New York and Chicago. His work is shown at the galleries of John Becker and Durand-Ruel.
Udstilling
An exhibition in Zurich and a trip to Greece with Le Corbusier
In 1933 a large exhibition of Léger's work is held at the Kunsthaus in Zurich, which he attends in person. In the same year he travels with Le Corbusier to Greece for the international congress of modern architecture, and on the ship home he gives a lecture, “Architecture and Life”.
Bopæl · 1940–1945
The war years in exile in the United States
In 1940–1945 Léger lives in exile in the United States. He teaches at Yale University, where Focillon, Milhaud and Maurois also teach, gives “Composition with Two Parrots” to the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and in the summer gives a course of lectures at Mills College (Oakland, California), where he organizes an exhibition of his paintings.
Udstilling · 28. juni 1964 – 6. oktober 1964
Documenta III
Udstilling
First exhibition at Kahnweiler's gallery
In 1912 Léger's first exhibition takes place at Kahnweiler's gallery. In the same year he shows “The Smokers” at the Indépendants and “Woman in Blue” at the Salon d'Automne and takes part in the exhibitions of the Section d'Or group.
Karriere
The Section d'Or group at Puteaux
In 1912 Léger joins Le Fauconnier, Metzinger, Gleizes, Picabia and the Duchamp brothers (Jacques Villon, Raymond Duchamp-Villon and Marcel Duchamp) to form the Puteaux Group, also called the Section d'Or; he had met Jacques Villon, and through him the group, at Puteaux as early as 1911.
Værk · 1912–1914
The “Contrasting Forms” series
From 1912 to 1914 Léger's paintings grow increasingly abstract: tubular, conical and cubed forms are laconically rendered in rough patches of primary colours plus green, black and white, as in the series “Contrasting Forms”. He makes no use of the collage technique pioneered by Braque and Picasso.
Udstilling
The Indépendants, the Armory Show and the Berlin Autumn Salon
In 1913 Léger takes part in the exhibition of the Indépendants, in the Armory Show and in the first exhibition of the Salon d'Automne in Berlin. In May he gives a lecture at the Vassilieff Academy, “The Origins of Painting and Its Representational Value”, whose text is published in Paris, Berlin and Bergen; in May 1914 a second lecture follows there, “New Discoveries in Modern Painting”.
Samtiden · 1914–1916 · Argonne
Mobilized: two years at the front
On 2 August 1914, soon after the outbreak of the First World War, Léger is mobilized and sent to the sappers; for two years he is at the front near the Argonne and Verdun, drawing artillery pieces, airplanes and fellow soldiers in the trenches and billets. He paints “Soldier with a Pipe” (1916) while on furlough.
Værk
Villepinte: “The Card Players” and the mechanical period
In 1917, while convalescing in Villepinte, Léger paints “The Card Players”, a canvas of monstrous robot-like figures that reflects his war experience and opens his “mechanical period”; at the front, he explained, he was stunned by the breech of a 75-millimetre gun in the sunlight — the magic of light on white metal made him forget the abstract art of 1912–1913 and want to paint “in slang” with all its colour and mobility. At the end of the year he is discharged from military service.
Værk · 1918–1919
“Disks”, “The City”, “Mechanical Elements”
In 1918–1919 Léger works intensively: he illustrates works by Cendrars, begins the “Disks” series, in which disks suggestive of traffic lights figure prominently, and the paintings “The City” (1919, Philadelphia Museum of Art) and “Mechanical Elements”. He exhibits at Léonce Rosenberg's Galerie L'Effort moderne in Paris and at the Galerie Sélection in Antwerp.
Værk
The film “Ballet Mécanique”
In 1924 Léger, with the filmmaker Dudley Murphy and in collaboration with Man Ray and the composer George Antheil, co-produces and co-directs the iconic, Futurism-influenced film “Ballet Mécanique” — neither abstract nor narrative, a series of images of a woman's lips and teeth, close-ups of ordinary objects, and repeated images of people and machines in rhythmic movement.
Karriere
A free academy with Ozenfant, and the pupil Nadia Khodossevitch
In 1924 Léger, with Amédée Ozenfant, Marie Laurencin and Alexandra Exter, sets up the Académie Moderne, a free school where he teaches. Among its students from 1924 is Nadia Khodossevitch, a cousin of the poet, later Léger's assistant and wife; other accounts place the opening of a “Modern Academy” with Ozenfant in 1929.
Udstilling · 1925–1927
The international decorative arts exhibition and shows in the USA
In 1925–1927 Léger manages, with some difficulty, to exhibit an abstract panel at the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts — in Le Corbusier's pavilion and in the Mallet-Stevens pavilion, which shows designs for a French embassy building. His work is shown at the Anderson Galleries in New York, at the Brooklyn Museum and at the Galerie des Quatre Chemins in Paris, and there is a solo retrospective at the Indépendants.
Karriere · August 1934
Sets for the Wells film in London
In August 1934 in London Léger prepares sets for the film after H. G. Wells, “The Shape of Things to Come”; he spends the summer with the Marphys at Antibes, in September an exhibition of his work opens at the Modern Gallery in Stockholm, and at the Sorbonne he gives a lecture, “From the Acropolis to the Eiffel Tower”.
Udstilling · New York City
Exhibitions at MoMA and the Art Institute of Chicago
In October 1935 Léger again travels to the United States, where he meets Le Corbusier; in the same year a large exhibition of his work is shown at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and at the Art Institute of Chicago. In 1935 he also designs the physical-culture hall at the world's fair in Brussels, built to Charlotte Perriand's design.
Værk · Paris
A panel for the Palace of Discovery at the World's Fair
In 1937 Léger makes a panel for the Palace of Discovery at the World's Fair in Paris, after the fair's directors had already rejected several projects. In the same year he designs sets for a trade-union festival at the Vélodrome d'Hiver and for Serge Lifar's ballet “David triomphant” (music by Rieti) at the Paris Opéra.
Værk · 1938–1939 · United States
Murals for Rockefeller and lectures at Yale
Léger spends the summer of 1938 with Le Corbusier at Vézelay and from September to March 1939 is in the United States, where he paints murals for the apartment of Nelson A. Rockefeller Jr. and gives a course of eight lectures at Yale University, “Colour in Architecture”. In Paris he designs sets for J. R. Bloch's play “Naissance d'une cité”.
Begivenhed · 1940–1945 · New York City
Broadway neon and bands of colour
During his American sojourn Léger begins making paintings in which freely arranged bands of colour are juxtaposed with figures and objects outlined in black. He credited the neon advertisements of Broadway as the source of this innovation: you talk to someone and he suddenly turns blue, then the colour fades, another one comes and turns him red or yellow.
Værk · 1943–1944
The “law of contrast” and “The Tree in the Ladder”
In America Léger finds inspiration for a new series of paintings in the novel sight of industrial refuse in the landscape — heaps of abandoned machines with flowers growing out of them and birds perching on top. The shock of juxtaposed natural and mechanical forms is what he calls the “law of contrast”; it results in “The Tree in the Ladder” (1943–44) and later “Romantic Landscape” (1946).
Begivenhed · France
Joining the French Communist Party
In 1945, on his return to France, Léger joins the Communist Party. According to the art historian Charlotta Kotik, his determination to depict the common man, and to create for him, came from socialist theories widespread among the avant-garde, but his social conscience was not that of a fierce Marxist but of a passionate humanist.
Rejse
The Congress of Intellectuals in Wrocław
In 1948 Léger travels to Poland for the World Congress of Intellectuals in Defence of Peace in Wrocław. In the same year he designs sets for Prokofiev's ballet “Le Pas d'acier” staged by Serge Lifar and, with his students, decorates the premises for the International Women's Congress in Paris.
Udstilling · Paris
A retrospective at the National Museum of Modern Art
In 1949 a retrospective exhibition of Léger's work is held at the National Museum of Modern Art in Paris.
Udgivelse
The essay “How I Conceive the Human Figure”
In 1945 Léger wrote that the object in modern painting must become the main character and overthrow the subject, and that if the human form in turn becomes an object it can considerably liberate possibilities for the modern artist. In his 1949 essay “How I Conceive the Human Figure” he elaborates: the figure is to be seen as a plastic value, not a sentimental one — which is why it has remained willfully inexpressive.
Værk · New York City
Murals for the United Nations
In 1952 a pair of Léger murals is installed in the General Assembly Hall of the United Nations headquarters in New York.
Værk
Mosaic and stained glass for the university in Caracas
In 1954, on commission from Raúl Villanueva, Léger makes a mosaic and stained glass for the university in Caracas, a window for Inocente Palacios and stained glass for the church at Courfaivre. In the same year he shows “Country Outing” and “The Big Parade” at the Maison de la pensée française.
Udstilling · 16. juli 1955 – 18. september 1955
documenta
Død · 17. august 1955
Gif-sur-Yvette
Begravelse
Gif-sur-Yvette
