LÉGER (Fernand). - Lot 144

LÉGER (Fernand). Born in Argentan. 1881-1955. French painter, ceramist, sculptor and illustrator. Member of the Puteaux group. Founded the Académie Moderne with Ozenfant. L.A.S. "F. Léger" to "Cher Henri" [the art dealer Henri Kahnweiler?] [Paris], 86 rue Notre-Dame des Champs, s.d., Saturday. 1 page in-8 on slate paper (double leaf - pinholes). The painter informs his correspondent that he intends to stay ...in Normandy until Wednesday. If by then there is a decision on the large painting, he should telephone Lefevre-Foinet (sic, Lefebvre-Foinet) 19 rue Vavin DAN. 64-34. They have employees who have stretched the canvas and who work very well, so you can entrust them with the dismantling and reassembling... He adds, ...The key to the studio is in the concierge's office. The Lefebvre-Foinet family were color merchants who ran their store in the Montparnasse district of Paris. For more than a century, artists such as Picasso, Modigliani and, later, Mondrian and Soulages, flocked to their doors. Destitute artists knew they could exchange paintings for materials, and it was in this way that the Lefebvre-Foinets built up an exceptional collection of 20th-century modern paintings (cf. Christies-Paris sale, 2009). Léger joined forces with Henri Kahnweiler in 1913, signing an exclusive contract with Picasso's famous dealer; at the same time, he moved to a new studio at!§ rue Notre-Dame des Champs, in the 6th arrondissement of Paris, which he kept until the end of his life. The circus was one of the painter's favorite themes. Many of his paintings are devoted to the famous Cirque Médrano, which he frequented with his poet friends Apollinaire, Cendrars, Max Jacob, and the painters Picasso and Rouault." Go to the circus. Nothing is as round as the circus. It's a huge bowl in which circular forms develop. It goes on and on and on. [...] Go to the circus. You leave your rectangles, your geometric windows, and you go to the land of circles in action", declared Fernand Léger in 1950. The painting "La Grande Parade" is at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, while variants are at the Musée national Fernand Léger in Biot.