About Fernand Léger

Fernand Léger

Untitled

1930
Pencil on wove paper
10 1/2 x 8 1/4 inches (26,8 x 20,8 cm)

In 1924, Fernand Léger directed the futuristic film "Le Ballet Méchanique" together with Man Ray, which is considered the first film without a script. Inspired by the new pictorial experience of the close-up, Léger dissolves the reference of things, his objects act for themselves in space, freed from any gravity and develop an independent, plastic beauty. His works show the development of decorative research in dialogue with architecture. This is also the case in our characteristic pencil drawing "Untitled" from 1930 with the accentuated contour lines typical of Léger. On the front of the sheet there is a dedication to Margaret Scolari (wife of MOMA's founding director Alfred Barr, with whom she also worked intensively). This drawing seems to herald the first exhibition of Léger's work at MOMA, New York, later that year.