Still Life on Red Background

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.

1940–1945

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.

1940–1945

A circle of refugees: Pierre Matisse and Father Couturier

In his years of exile Léger meets other refugee artists at Pierre Matisse's and forms a friendship with Father R. P. Couturier.

1945

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.

December 1945

Return to France

In December 1945 Léger returns to France after five years in the United States. His work becomes less abstract, and he produces many monumental figure compositions of popular life — acrobats, builders, divers, country outings.