Fernand Leger, Composition, Mon ami Leger, Limited Edition Lithograph

Lithograph and stencil on velin d'Arches paper. Paper size: 10.83 x 7.68 inches. Excellent condition. Inscription: Unsigned and unnumbered, as issued. Notes: From the album, Mon ami Leger par Andre Maurois de l'Academie francaise Comment je concois la figure par Fernand Leger, 1952. Published by Louis Carre, Editeur, Paris in association with l'Academie francaise, Paris, and Galerie Louis Carre & Cie, Paris; printed by Mourlot Freres, Paris, June 20, 1952. Excerpted from the album (translated from French), This album was published on the occasion of the exhibition, La figure dans l'œuvre de Fernand Leger, from June 6 to July 12, 1952 at the Louis Carre gallery, 10, avenue de Messine, Paris - VIII. Finished printing on June 20, 1952 in M examples on Velin d'Arches by Mourlot Freres in Paris. FERNAND LEGER (1881-1955) was a French painter, sculptor, and filmmaker. In his early works he created a personal form of cubism (known as "tubism") which he gradually modified into a more figurative, populist style. His boldly simplified treatment of modern subject matter has caused him to be regarded as a forerunner of pop art. Leger was born in Argentan, Orne, Lower Normandy, where his father raised cattle. Fernand Leger initially trained as an architect from 1897 to 1899, before moving in 1900 to Paris, where he supported himself as an architectural draftsman. After military service in Versailles, Yvelines, in 1902-1903, he enrolled at the School of Decorative Arts after his application to the Ecole des Beaux-Arts was rejected. He nevertheless attended the Beaux-Arts as a non-enrolled student, spending what he described as "three empty and useless years" studying with Gerome and others, while also studying at the Academie Julian. He began to work seriously as a painter only at the age of 25. At this point his work showed the influence of impressionism, as seen in Le Jardin de ma mere (My Mother's Garden) of 1905, one of the few paintings from this period that he did not later destroy. A new emphasis on drawing and geometry appeared in Leger's work after he saw the Cezanne retrospective at the Salon d'Automne in 1907. In 1909, he moved to Montparnasse and met Alexander Archipenko, Jacques Lipchitz, Marc Chagall, Joseph Csaky and Robert Delaunay. In 1910, he exhibited at the Salon d'Automne in the same room (salle VIII) as Jean Metzinger and Henri Le Fauconnier. In his major painting of this period, Nudes in the Forest, Leger displays a personal form of Cubism that his critics termed "Tubism" for its emphasis on cylindrical forms. In 1911, the hanging committee of the Salon des Independants placed together the painters identified as 'Cubists'. Metzinger, Albert Gleizes, Le Fauconnier, Delaunay and Leger were responsible for revealing Cubism to the general public for the first time as an organized group. The following year he again exhibited at the Salon d'Automne and Independants with the Cubists, and joined with several artists, including Le Fauconnier, Metzinger, Gleizes, Francis Picabia and the Duchamp brothers, Jacques Villon, Raymond Duchamp-Villon and Marcel Duchamp to form the Puteaux Group-also called the Section d'Or (The Golden Section) paintings, from then until 1914, became increasingly abstract. Their tubular, conical, and cubed forms are laconically rendered in rough patches of primary colors plus green, black and white, as seen in the series of paintings with the title Contrasting Forms. Leger made no use of the collage technique pioneered by Braque and Picasso.

Excellent condition