Fernand Léger
Composition1925

On view:

Broad Contemporary Art Museum, floor 3

Artist or Maker: Fernand Léger
France, 1881-1955
Title: Composition
Place Made: France
Date Made: 1925
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 36 1/4 × 25 5/8 in. (92.08 × 65.09 cm)
Credit Line: Partial, fractional and promised gift of Janice and Henri Lazarof
Accession Number: M.2005.70.65
Classification: Paintings
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: 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.