- Title
- Composition
- Date Made
- 1925
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 36 1/4 × 25 5/8 in. (92.08 × 65.09 cm)
- Accession Number
- M.2005.70.65
- Collecting Area
- Modern Art
- Curatorial Notes
Fernand Léger’s work following World War I reflects the tendency among many European artists, in response to the war’s destruction, to return to a purity of form and balance. Part of a group of canvases from 1925 with similar abstract compositions, this painting resembles a small, intricate section of an elaborate machine. With its repeated forms and architectural and mechanical motifs, it relates visually to Ballet mécanique, the short avant-garde film Léger made in 1923–24.
Wall label, 2021.
- Provenance
The artist (1881-1955); [Galerie Simon, Paris, invoice no.9282]. Private Collection, Germany; [sold in 1994 to Galerie Beyeler, Basel]; sold in 1995 to Janice and Henri Lazarof, Los Angeles; given in 2005 to LACMA.
- Selected Bibliography
- Georges Bauquier. "Fernand Léger, Catalog Raisonné de l'oeuvre Peint, 1925-1928." Maeght Editeur, 1994.
- Barron, Stephanie. Envisioning Modernism: The Janice and Henri Lazarof Collection. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Munich; New York: DelMonico Books-Prestel, 2012.
- Copyright
- © 2015 Estate of Fernand Léger / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris
