Fernand Léger

Galerie Louise Leiris, Paris
David B. Findlay Galleries, New York
Morris Emer, Canada (sold: Replica Shoes 's, New York, November 13, 1996, lot 336)
Acquired at the above sale

Original canvas. Under UV light, there is no inpainting apparent. Work is in excellent condition.
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The visual interplay of opposing forms and aesthetics underpinned Léger's most dynamic works of the 1950s, vividly exemplified in Un Tournesol sur fond polychrome. In the present work, the artist juxtaposes the organic with the structural, the curved black lines of the sunflower challenged by the geometric blocks of color, hovering between figuration and abstraction. The freedom with which Léger applied color by 1954, the year Un Tournesol sur fond polychrome was painted, heightens this dynamic. As Léger stated, "...color has a reality in itself, a life of its own; that geometric form has also a reality in itself, independent and plastic... It is a matter of making something beautiful, moving or dramatic..." (quoted in Picasso, Braque, Léger: Masterpieces from Swiss collects ions (exhibition catalogue), Minneapolis, 1975, pp. 65-66, 69).

Léger's revolutionary ideas about color and form were widely influential. In a 1997 interview with Roy Lichtenstein conducted by Katherine J. Michaelsen, the artist was asked about Léger:

"KJM: I was happy to hear you say that there are many similarities between your work and Léger's... Both you and Léger have an emotionally impersonal painting style.  You tend to be monumental in your work. You use a narrow range of flat colors, an anonymous surface texture...
Roy Lichtenstein: Even his flowers have black lines around them, or they're made of ceramic, and they're big and heavy, and they don't have anything of the flower. I love the idea of that" (quoted in Hatje Cantz, Fernand Léger Paris - New York (exhibition catalogue), Basel, 2008, p. 157).

Fig. 1, Roy Lichtenstein, Black Flowers, 1961, oil on canvas, Private collects ion
Fig. 2 Fernand Léger, Les Soleils sur fond orange, 1954, ceramic, Sydney Janis Gallery