Le Corbusier – Cortége Portfolio (B & W)
Chez Soi – Le Corbusier Lithograph
Year: 1960
Black and White Edition of 150
Medium: Traditional stone lithograph on BFK Rives wove paper printed by Atelier Mourlot
Dimensions: 102 cm x 71 cm
Le Corbusier was born Charles-Edouard Jeanneret-Gris in Switzerland and assumed the pseudonym when he moved to Paris in 1917. He was an architect who belonged to the first generation of the International School of Architecture and his work was chiefly built with steel and reinforced concrete and worked with elemental geometric forms. In 1918, Corbu met Cubist painter Amédée Ozenfant who encouraged him to paint. His architectural education comes through in his later painting as emphasised by clear forms and structures.
THE ARTIST
LE CORBUSIER
b. 1887 La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland
Le Corbusier cannot be comprehended without including him as a painter, a draftsman and a graphic artist. Art was the foundation with which he built his architectural work upon and develop his modernist vision. Art inspired Le Corbusier to explore his ideas of architectural space, visions which were completely unique and yet to be realised at the time. He experimented with the dissolution and reconstruction of the three dimensional shapes, which can later be seen in his buildings and even in his urban architectural projects. The development that he underwent as an artist was parallel to his development as an architect. It is not without reason that he placed importance on the statement that the key to his architecture was to be found in his artistic work. Le Corbusier cannot be comprehended without including him as a painter, a draftsman and a graphic artist. Art was the foundation with which he built his architectural work upon and develop his modernist vision. Art inspired Le Corbusier to explore his ideas of architectural space, visions which were completely unique and yet to be realised at the time. He experimented with the dissolution and reconstruction of the three dimensional shapes, which can later be seen in his buildings and even in his urban architectural projects. The development that he underwent as an artist was parallel to his development as an architect. It is not without reason that he placed importance on the statement that the key to his architecture was to be found in his artistic work.
By 1920's Le Corbusier was an established architect, but it wasn't until forty years after his death that he gained recognition for his artwork, and the significance it held in art history. He gained strength and inspiration from his art: for decades he devoted every morning to his artwork. Art was “the key to my existence.”