Fernand Léger was a famous French painter, sculptor and printmaker associated with cubism, purism and modernism. He is best known for his stylized works, with thick black outlines, and often used bright primary colors. Famous Fernand Leger artworks include “La Femme en Bleu (Woman in Blue)”, “Still Life with a Beer Mug”, “The Railway Crossing”, “Soldier with a Pipe”, “Construction Workers, Final State”, “The Acrobat and his Partner”, “Woman with a Cat”, “Les Plongeurs (The Divers)”, “Acrobats and Clowns”, and “La femme et l’enfant (Mother and Child)”.
Mini biography: Born Joseph Fernand Henri Léger on the 4th of February, 1881 in Argentan, Orne, France. His father was a cattle farmer. Leger married Jeanne-Augustine Lohy in 1919 until 1950. He married his second wife Nadia Khodossevitch in 1952. The artist died on the 17th of August, 1955 in Gif-sur-Yvette, France at the age of 74. Fernand Léger is buried at the Cimetière de Gif Sur Yvette in Gif-sur-Yvette, France.
Collection of Famous Fernand Léger Art Quotes
Man needs color to live; it’s just as necessary an element as fire and water. Fernand Léger
As long as the human body is considered a sentimental or expressive value in painting, no evolution in picture of people will be possible. Its development has been hindered by the domination of the subject over the ages. Fernand Léger
Above all, it is a matter of loving art, not understanding it. Fernand Léger
The object in modern painting must become the main character and overthrow the subject. If, in turn, the human form becomes an object, it can considerably liberate possibilities for the modern artist. Fernand Léger
From the day that the impressionists liberated painting, the modern picture set out at once the structure itself on contrasts; instead of submitting to a subject, the painter makes an insertion and uses a subject in the service of purely plastic means. Fernand Léger
In contemporary modern painting, the object must become the leading character and dethrone the subject. Then, in turn, if the person, the face, and the human body become objects, the modern artist will be offered considerable freedom. Fernand Léger
Enormous enlargements of an object or a fragment give it a personality it never had before, and in this way, it can become a vehicle of entirely new lyric and plastic power. Fernand Léger
I myself have employed the close-up, which is the cinema’s only real invention. The fragment of the object has also been of use to me; by isolating it you personalize it. All this work has led me to regard the phenomenon of objectivity as a new and highly contemporary value in itself. Fernand Léger
In 1942 when I was in New York, I was struck by the neon advertisements flashing all over Broadway. You are there, you talk to someone, and all of a sudden he turns blue. Then the color fades – another one comes and turns him red or yellow. The color – the color of neon advertising is free; it exists in space. I wanted to do the same in my canvases. Fernand Léger
When one crosses a landscape by automobile or express train, it becomes fragmented; it loses in descriptive value but gains in synthetic value. The view through the door of the railroad car or the automobile windshield, in combination with the speed, has altered the habitual look of things. A modern man registers a hundred times more sensory impressions than an eighteenth-century artist; so much so that our language, for example is full of diminutives and abbreviations. Fernand Léger
Isn’t it human to go beyond the limits, to grow beyond oneself, to strive toward freedom! Fernand Léger
Fernand Léger Portrait Painting
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Related or similar popular artists include: Georges Braque, Piet Mondrian, Claus Oldenburg, Henri Matisse, Jean Dubuffet, and other Famous French Painters.
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