Fernand Léger
Prints, Posters and Lithographs For Sale
A collection of works on paper from the celebrated Modern Art master Fernand Leger. Browse our current collection of authentic and original Léger lithographs and prints. Though Fernand Léger built his reputation as a Cubist, his style varied considerably from decade to decade, fluctuating between figuration and abstraction and showing influence from a wide range of sources. Léger worked in a variety of media including paint, ceramic, film, theater and dance sets, glass and print. In his early works he created a personal form of cubism which he gradually modified into a more figurative, populist style. While his style varied, his work was consistently graphic, favouring primary colours, pattern, and bold form. Léger’s unique form of Cubism that relied on cylindrical forms was influential to many abstract painters and sculptors, including Henry Moore, while his bold use of colour in combination with his idea of art as something that “everyone can understand” inspired many Pop artists.
Influenced by the chaos of urban spaces and his interest in brilliant, primary colour, Léger sought to express the noise, dynamism, and speed of new technology and machinery often creating a sense of movement in his paintings. This style is synonamous with his legacy and came about during the 1920s, when he befriended Le Corbusier, aligning himself closely with the circle around Le Corbusier who were interested in machinery and depicting speed and motion.
THE ARTIST
FERNAND LÉGER
b. 1881, Argentan, France
Fernand Léger was a French painter, sculptor and print maker. Considered a foundational figure in the development of Cubism alongside contemporaries Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso, painter Fernand Léger pioneered an abstract style all of his own: His aesthetic, which features bold primary colours and disjointed, conical forms, has been informally called “Tubism.” Léger’s graphic, flattened scenes of contemporary city life, circuses, and common objects offered an accessible approach to Cubist styles. His bold simplified treatment of modern subject matter has caused him to be regarded as a forerunner of pop art. His mature work underwent many changes, from his Cubist-derived abstraction in the 1910s to distinctive realist imagery in the 1950s. His service during World War I sparked an interest in the machines and elements of industry that appear across his later canvases.
In the decade before his death, Léger’s wide-ranging projects included book illustrations, monumental figure paintings and murals, stained-glass windows, mosaics, polychrome ceramic sculptures, and set and costume designs. In 1955 he won the Grand Prize at the São Paulo Bienal. Léger died on August 17 of that year at his home in Gif-sur-Yvette, France. The Musée Fernand Léger was inaugurated in 1960 in Biot, France.