.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
[TEXT FOR FIRST PAGE WITH CATALOGUING:] 'During these years in America I do feel that I have worked with a greater intensity and achieved more expression than in my previous work. In this country there is a definitely romantic atmosphere in the good sense of the word - an increased sense of movement and violence... I prefer to see America through its contrasts - its vitality, its litter and its waste... What has come out most notably... in the work I have done in America is in my opinion a new energy - an increased movement within the composition' (Léger, quoted in C. Lanchner, Fernand Léger, exh. cat., New York, 1998, p. 234).
'In Woman with Butterflies patches of kinetic colour emphasise the idea of flitting butterflies and birds, setting up a point-counterpoint activity between the central human figure and the circulating insects and birds. But Léger's chief preoccupation, together with many of his contemporaries like Picasso, Matisse and Braque, is to use colour freely in order to explore and invent new kinds of space' (K. Kuh, Léger, exh. cat., Chicago, 1953, p. 62).
So wrote Katharine Kuh, the prominent curator and art historian, discussing Composition aux deux papillons (La femme aux papillons) when she included it in her important exhibition of Fernand Léger's works at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1953; that show subsequently travelled to San Francisco and then the Museum of Modern Art, New York. It was perhaps with a certain prescience that Kuh wrote in such rhapsodic terms about Composition aux deux papillons, as three and a half decades later it would be acquired by the Art Institute of Chicago, and in whose collection it remained for almost two decades, having earlier belonged to the prominent steel magnate, collector and philanthropist Joseph L. Block.
The inclusion of Composition aux deux papillons in that 1953 exhibition was singularly apt, as this picture dates from one of the most important periods of Léger's career, when he was living in the United States of America. Léger had left France towards the beginning of the Second World War, one of the first of a wave of European artists to head into exile, many of whom feared the reprisals that their avant garde art would provoke under the Occupation. Léger had had a long relationship with the United States and had been fascinated during previous visits. However, during the years that he spent there in the first half of the 1940s, he explained: 'I can't complain about my stay here. I've been able to renew myself completely' (Léger, quoted in C. Lanchner, 'Fernand Léger: American Connections', pp. 15-70, in C. Lanchner, op. cit., New York, 1998, p. 57).
That sense of renewal is clear in Composition aux deux papillons. The floating fields of colour that dominate the composition were a new development which would come to feature in many of his works and be associated with his signature style from this point onwards. These dynamic ribbons of colour have a flag-like intensity; they are effectively transparent, superimposed upon and not occluding the figurative scene of the woman, the birds and the butterflies. In Composition aux deux papillons, Léger has deliberately used the interlocking and interweaving forms of the arms, the wings and the butterflies to create a sense of pulsing movement and rhythm, that vibrates throughout the entire composition and which is given all the more fuel through the presence of the bold strips of red, blue and yellow.
Léger's new attitude towards colour may have been influenced by such sights as Times Square. There is a sense of the energy of billboards and commercial illuminations that has been combined with the bucolic vision of the birds, butterflies and woman. This subject matter, in turn, hints that Composition aux deux papillons may date from the second half of 1943, when Léger was beginning to spend an increasing amount of time at Rouses Point in upstate New York. It was earlier in the year, while travelling to Montreal for an exhibition, that Léger had noticed the train stopping there and had returned, acquiring a place to stay where he would spend several summers. With its proximity to the Canadian border, Rouses Point felt relatively homely to Léger, who greatly appreciated the fact that there was even a peppering of native French speakers. Having spent so long in the city, Léger's return to the countryside which, in France, he had so loved, was momentous. Themes involving nature entered his work with a new energy, as appears to be the case in Composition aux deux papillons.
Carolyn Lanchner has pointed out that Léger's work in the United States largely fell into three categories, or periods: the Plongeurs, the divers who occupied him on arrival, resulting in pictures of near-abstract masses of undulating flesh, the landscapes, and finally the Cyclistes, who would feature in pictures such as the celebrated 1943-48 painting now in the Musée national Fernand Léger, Biot (see ibid., p. 56). Clearly, as a nature-themed work, Composition aux deux papillons appears to fall into the landscape category; yet in terms of its human content and its bustling composition, it clearly prefigures the striking images of cyclists that were to follow. That dynamism was in part rooted in Léger's long-standing concern with movement and space, and in part with the degree to which that interest had once more been piqued by the United States. His awe for his surroundings was as evident in Composition aux deux papillons as it was in his own statements:
'It's not a country - it's a world. It's impossible to see the limits. In Europe each nation is aware of its boundaries, whether it is France, Italy, England, Scandinavia. There, all is without limit. It is only in Russia that I had a similar impression, but it wasn't the same thing. In America you are confronted with a power in movement with force in reserve without end. An unbelievable vitality - a perpetual movement. One has the impression that there is too much of everything' (Léger, quoted in S. Willmoth, 'Léger and America', pp. 43-54, in Fernand Léger: The Later Years, exh. cat., London, 1988, p. 43).
It is this feeling of abundance and of energy that fills Composition aux deux papillons, all the more so because of the manner in which the female figure dominates the composition, almost spilling out of it.
Composition aux deux papillons met with immediate success: it was included in the important post-war exhibition held at the Paris gallery of his dealer Louis Carré that took place in the wake of the Second World War. That show, Fernand Léger: Oeuvres d'Amérique 1940-1945, met with great enthusiasm. The writer André Warnod's glowing review wrote in terms that perfectly apply to Composition aux deux papillons:
'Fernand Léger is showing some paintings he brought back from America at Louis Carré's. They mark a step in the evolution of the artist and are an enrichment of his work and French art. His painting has become more direct... almost more realist and more intensely coloured... Reds, blues, yellows, greens spread across his canvases without being imprisoned within the contours of improvisation' (A. Warnod, quoted in C. Lanchner, op. cit., 1998, p. 58).
Later, the picture was included in a 1947 exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam where Léger's work was shown alongside that of Alexander Calder. Looking at the floating colour forms of Composition aux deux papillons, there is a clear resonance between this picture and Calder's Mobiles, in which monochrome panels of colour often rotate according to the breeze of the gallery.
'In Woman with Butterflies patches of kinetic colour emphasise the idea of flitting butterflies and birds, setting up a point-counterpoint activity between the central human figure and the circulating insects and birds. But Léger's chief preoccupation, together with many of his contemporaries like Picasso, Matisse and Braque, is to use colour freely in order to explore and invent new kinds of space' (K. Kuh, Léger, exh. cat., Chicago, 1953, p. 62).
So wrote Katharine Kuh, the prominent curator and art historian, discussing Composition aux deux papillons (La femme aux papillons) when she included it in her important exhibition of Fernand Léger's works at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1953; that show subsequently travelled to San Francisco and then the Museum of Modern Art, New York. It was perhaps with a certain prescience that Kuh wrote in such rhapsodic terms about Composition aux deux papillons, as three and a half decades later it would be acquired by the Art Institute of Chicago, and in whose collection it remained for almost two decades, having earlier belonged to the prominent steel magnate, collector and philanthropist Joseph L. Block.
The inclusion of Composition aux deux papillons in that 1953 exhibition was singularly apt, as this picture dates from one of the most important periods of Léger's career, when he was living in the United States of America. Léger had left France towards the beginning of the Second World War, one of the first of a wave of European artists to head into exile, many of whom feared the reprisals that their avant garde art would provoke under the Occupation. Léger had had a long relationship with the United States and had been fascinated during previous visits. However, during the years that he spent there in the first half of the 1940s, he explained: 'I can't complain about my stay here. I've been able to renew myself completely' (Léger, quoted in C. Lanchner, 'Fernand Léger: American Connections', pp. 15-70, in C. Lanchner, op. cit., New York, 1998, p. 57).
That sense of renewal is clear in Composition aux deux papillons. The floating fields of colour that dominate the composition were a new development which would come to feature in many of his works and be associated with his signature style from this point onwards. These dynamic ribbons of colour have a flag-like intensity; they are effectively transparent, superimposed upon and not occluding the figurative scene of the woman, the birds and the butterflies. In Composition aux deux papillons, Léger has deliberately used the interlocking and interweaving forms of the arms, the wings and the butterflies to create a sense of pulsing movement and rhythm, that vibrates throughout the entire composition and which is given all the more fuel through the presence of the bold strips of red, blue and yellow.
Léger's new attitude towards colour may have been influenced by such sights as Times Square. There is a sense of the energy of billboards and commercial illuminations that has been combined with the bucolic vision of the birds, butterflies and woman. This subject matter, in turn, hints that Composition aux deux papillons may date from the second half of 1943, when Léger was beginning to spend an increasing amount of time at Rouses Point in upstate New York. It was earlier in the year, while travelling to Montreal for an exhibition, that Léger had noticed the train stopping there and had returned, acquiring a place to stay where he would spend several summers. With its proximity to the Canadian border, Rouses Point felt relatively homely to Léger, who greatly appreciated the fact that there was even a peppering of native French speakers. Having spent so long in the city, Léger's return to the countryside which, in France, he had so loved, was momentous. Themes involving nature entered his work with a new energy, as appears to be the case in Composition aux deux papillons.
Carolyn Lanchner has pointed out that Léger's work in the United States largely fell into three categories, or periods: the Plongeurs, the divers who occupied him on arrival, resulting in pictures of near-abstract masses of undulating flesh, the landscapes, and finally the Cyclistes, who would feature in pictures such as the celebrated 1943-48 painting now in the Musée national Fernand Léger, Biot (see ibid., p. 56). Clearly, as a nature-themed work, Composition aux deux papillons appears to fall into the landscape category; yet in terms of its human content and its bustling composition, it clearly prefigures the striking images of cyclists that were to follow. That dynamism was in part rooted in Léger's long-standing concern with movement and space, and in part with the degree to which that interest had once more been piqued by the United States. His awe for his surroundings was as evident in Composition aux deux papillons as it was in his own statements:
'It's not a country - it's a world. It's impossible to see the limits. In Europe each nation is aware of its boundaries, whether it is France, Italy, England, Scandinavia. There, all is without limit. It is only in Russia that I had a similar impression, but it wasn't the same thing. In America you are confronted with a power in movement with force in reserve without end. An unbelievable vitality - a perpetual movement. One has the impression that there is too much of everything' (Léger, quoted in S. Willmoth, 'Léger and America', pp. 43-54, in Fernand Léger: The Later Years, exh. cat., London, 1988, p. 43).
It is this feeling of abundance and of energy that fills Composition aux deux papillons, all the more so because of the manner in which the female figure dominates the composition, almost spilling out of it.
Composition aux deux papillons met with immediate success: it was included in the important post-war exhibition held at the Paris gallery of his dealer Louis Carré that took place in the wake of the Second World War. That show, Fernand Léger: Oeuvres d'Amérique 1940-1945, met with great enthusiasm. The writer André Warnod's glowing review wrote in terms that perfectly apply to Composition aux deux papillons:
'Fernand Léger is showing some paintings he brought back from America at Louis Carré's. They mark a step in the evolution of the artist and are an enrichment of his work and French art. His painting has become more direct... almost more realist and more intensely coloured... Reds, blues, yellows, greens spread across his canvases without being imprisoned within the contours of improvisation' (A. Warnod, quoted in C. Lanchner, op. cit., 1998, p. 58).
Later, the picture was included in a 1947 exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam where Léger's work was shown alongside that of Alexander Calder. Looking at the floating colour forms of Composition aux deux papillons, there is a clear resonance between this picture and Calder's Mobiles, in which monochrome panels of colour often rotate according to the breeze of the gallery.