Fernand LegerPlumes et crayons
Circa 1927
Pencil, pen and Indian ink on paper
Signed
12.6 x 9.76 in ( 32 x 24.8 cm )

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Inquiry - Plumes et crayons, Circa 1927

After the First World War, Fernand Léger became close friends with Le Corbusier and Ozenfant, with whom he collaborated at the Atelier Libre. His works gradually took on the precise and polished appearance of machinery, reflecting his interest in representing mechanical elements. In the late 1920s and 1930s, Léger also painted isolated objects in space, sometimes magnified to a gigantic scale.

This work from 1927 fits perfectly into this approach. Here, it is the combination of ink feathers with pencils of different scales. These are objects floating in space, found in other compositions by Léger. Note the presence in the composition, towards the top and middle, of biomorphic motifs. He remains faithful here to the "realism of conception," particularly through the lines and curves that delineate it. The notion of shadow and light is also clearly defined with the metal ink feathers, the edges of the pencils, and the cameo in profile. The notion of contrast, dear to Léger, fully plays its role here. Contrast between cylindrical and rectilinear forms that he would revisit throughout his life. A perspective is given to the whole of this drawing, which stands halfway between Purism and Surrealism.

He would revisit most of these motifs in a 1946 drawing titled "Composition aux porte-plumes et crayon" dedicated to the art critic Frank Elgar.

Fernand Léger arrived in Paris in 1900 with his painter friend André Mare, with whom he shared a workshop. He joined the School of Fine Arts and worked with a photographer and an architect. Léger is considered one of the four founders of Cubism. He was very successful from 1913 and obtained a contract from the promoter Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler. Léger then began his series on contrasts and shapes. He joined the army and served on the front in 1914. The war influenced his art, as evidenced by "the soldier with a pipe", canvas he produced in 1916. Fernand Léger, embodied modernism, he will know a real success at the 1937 International Exhibition. In 1940, he went into exile in New York to join painters' friends. He has directed numerous painting schools, in Montrouge, Boulevard de Clichy and also in Montmartre. In 1955, the year of his death, he received the prize for the Sao Paulo Biennial in Brazil.