Fernand Léger and the roofs of Paris
Kroller-Muller Museum – Nov 19, 2022 to Apr 02, 2023 Otterlo (Netherlands)
The exhibition Fernand Léger and the rooftops of Paris is the ideal opportunity to discover a key moment in the oeuvre of the French cubist Fernand Léger. It also features a premiere: the discovery of a hidden painting.
Fumées sur les toits.
When Fernand Léger (1881-1955) paints the series Fumées sur les toits in 1911-1912, he finds himself at a turning point in his career. From 1908 he makes a radical departure from the style of his earlier works. Initially heavily inspired by Paul Cézanne, in search of new artistic possibilities. The view from his studio over the roofs of Paris, with its chimneys and plumes of smoke. Inspires Léger to experiment with form and colour, working from relatively realistic and monochrome towards increasingly abstract and colourful. This search ultimately results in cubist works such as Contrastes de formes (1913-1914), which he makes on the eve of the First World War. The painting La partie de cartes (1917), which Helene Kröller-Müller acquires for her collection and that constitutes a high point in Léger’s oeuvre, would also have been unimaginable without the Fumées sur les toits.
Triton Collection Foundation.
On the basis of paintings and drawings, Fernand Léger and the rooftops of Paris shows Léger’s development, with the painting Fumées sur les toits from the Triton Collection Foundation at its centre. The painting is on public display for the first time. The broader context is formed by the works of the two groups of cubists in Paris. The group around Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque that exhibited mainly in the gallery of Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, and the group around Léger, which exhibited at the major Salons and also included Robert Delaunay. Jean Metzinger and Henri Le Fauconnier.
Kroller-Muller Museum→ Houtkampweg 6 Otterlo, Netherlands 6731
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