Fernand Léger and many other great artists on display in Paris

Positioned under the banner of creative friendship and collaborative spirit, this exhibition consists of comparing a work from the museum's collection with that of another artist, painter or sculptor, with whom Fernand Léger (1881-1955) was able, during his career, to establish a friendly relationship or to develop an artistic collaboration.

Naturally generous, curious and open to the technical and artistic innovations of his century, Fernand Léger has always been surrounded by artists who have influenced his approach as a painter. At the crossroads of the main movements of the European avant-garde, his work, oscillating between abstraction and figuration, accompanied the great aesthetic upheavals of the first half of the XNUMXth century: it made an original contribution to modernity while affirming the freedom and independence of the spirit and the creation of the painter.

Beyond a rereading of the itinerary of the collections, the Fernand Léger National Museum highlights the thematic and stylistic proximity between the works but also the mutual and fruitful influences that marked and nourished the artists of this period.

“Vis-à-vis, Fernand Léger and his friends” explores the eminently classical themes of painting, such as the representation of the human figure, or that of the landscape, to reveal how modern artists have grasped it in order to better revolutionize them. At the crossroads of all the great artistic revolutions, Fernand Léger's work brings together and crosses all currents of painting, marking today's creation with his visionary imprint.

Fernand Léger, The Great Parade on a Red Background, 1953
In the nineteenth century, the painters of the impressionist generation, especially Edgar Degas, then Georges Seurat, were fervent admirers of the circus universe and were the first to discover all its plastic potential: geometric shapes, raw colours, projections, luminous and unusual panoramas they break with the traditional lines of flight. Even modern artists such as Georges Rouault, Pablo Picasso and film director Federico Fellini have grasped this subject. For Fernand Léger it is a source of inspiration in constant renewal and a real plastic challenge: “Being a painter and faced with this show feeling so powerless to solve it on a canvas. In La Grande Parade against a red background, he broke with the ambition – which presided over the conception of the book Circus in the 1950s – to translate the dynamism of the show onto a flat surface. On the contrary, he stages an almost static group portrait: temporarily interrupting his parade, a nomadic troupe of acrobats poses in front of the painter as in front of a photographer's lens. Léger captures all the emblematic protagonists of the circus, accompanied by their accessories: rider, horse, clown musicians, acrobats. These graphic figures stand out against a red background which reinforces the unity of the group and gives the scene a timeless dimension. Léger here celebrates an ideal of collective, family and warm life in which his values ​​of sharing and solidarity are reflected.