Printer: Mourlot

Dimensions: 76 x 50 cm

Condition: Very good 

Frame: Charcoal

Description: Produced in 1957 at the Atelier Mourlot in Paris. This poster was made to promote a sale of artworks donated by contemporary artists, with proceeds going toward providing free holidays for underprivileged children in the city. The design is based on a work by Fernand Léger with the same title. The sale and exhibition were held that year at the Galerie Marcel C. Coard in Paris.

Artist: Fernand Léger (1881-1955) was a French painter, sculptor, ceramicist and filmmaker. After initial rejection, he enrolled at the École des Beaux-Arts and the Académie Julian in Paris. His early inspiration came from Cézanne, and in 1909, he lived in Montparnasse and met artists including Chagall and Delaunay. He was also inspired by the early cubism of Picasso and Braque. By 1911, he was one of the first painters, along with Metzinger, Gleizes, Le Fauconnier and Delaunay to bring cubism to the public’s attention at an exhibition organised by the Salon des Indépendants. He developed his own form of cubism that his critics termed ‘Tubism’ because of its focus on cylindrical forms. Regarded as a forerunner of pop art, his work changed from cubist-derived abstraction which covered his ‘mechanical’ period inspired from active service at the front in the First World War; designing sets and costumes for ballet; filmmaking and series’ of routine human activities, to distinctive realist imagery. In the last years of his life, he illustrated books, painted murals, designed stained-glass windows, mosaics, ceramic sculptures and set and costume designs.