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Lot Essay
Formerly in the collection of Joan Miró, Composition aux deux profils was painted by Fernand Léger at the height of his fame in 1952. By this time, the style with which Léger painted had become iconic enough that it was being used in paintings and indeed in murals throughout the world, for instance in the architectural-scale decoration for the UN building in New York. Léger has channelled his style into Composition aux deux profils, which is filled with vibrancy through of his use of the bold colours and the black lines. These add an intensity to the entire image, acting like the leading in stained glass which serves to push the colours all the more to the fore. The two heads shown in this picture appear to gaze optimistically to the side, as though united in some single purpose, an image of an optimism that is only heightened by the intense palette of unmixed, unmodulated colour. At the heart of the composition are swathes of the blue, red and white that had featured in his Contrastes de forms in the early 1910s, and which also recall the Tricolore, the French national flag. Meanwhile, they are framed by areas of yellow, green and black which serve to underscore the visual drama of the picture surface.
In a sense, the heads shown in Composition aux deux profils appear to lie underneath the mesh of strips of colour. The profiles occupy the centre of the picture, but are both below and surrounded by vivid zones of colour and shifting lines. In this way, the picture conforms to Léger's own statement regarding painting, made only two years before this picture: 'The plastic life, the picture, is made up of harmonious relationships among volumes, lines, and colours. These are the three forces that must govern works of art,' he explained. 'If, in organising these three essential elements harmoniously, one finds that objects, elements of reality, can enter into the composition, it may be better and may give the work more richness. But they must be subordinated to the three essential elements mentioned above' (Léger, quoted in C. Lanchner, Fernand Léger, exh.cat., New York, 1998, p. 247).
In a sense, the heads shown in Composition aux deux profils appear to lie underneath the mesh of strips of colour. The profiles occupy the centre of the picture, but are both below and surrounded by vivid zones of colour and shifting lines. In this way, the picture conforms to Léger's own statement regarding painting, made only two years before this picture: 'The plastic life, the picture, is made up of harmonious relationships among volumes, lines, and colours. These are the three forces that must govern works of art,' he explained. 'If, in organising these three essential elements harmoniously, one finds that objects, elements of reality, can enter into the composition, it may be better and may give the work more richness. But they must be subordinated to the three essential elements mentioned above' (Léger, quoted in C. Lanchner, Fernand Léger, exh.cat., New York, 1998, p. 247).