Galerie Paul Pétridès, Paris
Perls Galleries, New York (1973)
Phil Warren (sold: Sotheby’s, New York, November 4, 1982, lot 57)
Acquired at the above sale

Miami, Metropolitan Museum and Art Centers, 1978 (on loan)

Jean Follain, “Fernand Léger,” Cahiers d’Art, no. 1-2, Paris, 1940, illustrated p. 24
Christian Zervos, Fernand Léger, oeuvres de 1905 à 1952, Paris, 1952, illustrated p. 68
Georges Bauquier, Fernand Léger: Catalogue Raisonné, 1938-1943, Paris, 1998, no. 1007, illustrated p. 56

During the late 1930s, Léger’s work included an emphasis on international interior design projects, and his paintings from this period often incorporated the crisp imagery that he devised for these purposes.  In 1937, he designed stage sets for the Paris opera house, as well as decorations for the Trade Union Congress at the Vélodrome d’Hiver and the Transport des Forces for the Palais de Découverte in Paris.  Léger continued to work in this capacity in 1938, when he was commissioned to decorate the apartment of Nelson Rockefeller in New York.  These various design projects brought forth a decorative flair in many of the artist’s formal compositions on canvas, including the present work from 1938.  Silhouetted against a white background, the still-life in the present work is balanced with a large, abstract blue form on the left of the canvas.  Paint is applied very flatly and there is little use of the shadow that Léger usually employed in his figural compositions. 

Writing about the artist’s paintings of this era, Peter de Francia has observed, “Léger’s paintings of the late 1930s are imbued with an exuberant lyricism and sense of freedom, and if they have a certain affinity with the concepts of any other artist of the period it is with the work of the American sculptor Alexander Calder.  The two artists had met in 1930 and Léger had written the introduction to the catalogue of Calder’s wire and metal sculptures held at the Galerie Percier in Paris in April and May of the following year” (Peter de Francia, Fernand Léger, New Haven and London, 1983, p. 126).  With its expressive lines and vivid color, Composition avec vase reflects Lওéger’s ability to translate Calder’s sculptural techniques onto▨ canvas, while maintaining a style that is uniquely his own.