Galerie Louis Carré, Paris 
Sale: Hôtel Drouot, Paris, March 25, 1984, lot 82
Private Collection, Paris 
Private Collection, Tel Aviv
Landau Fine Arts, Montreal
Acquired from the above in 2006 

Amsterdam, Stedelijk Museum, Alexander Calder, Fernand Léger, 1947, no. 74
Berne, Kunsthalle, Calder, Léger, Bodmer, Leuppi, 1947, no. 68
Milan, Palazzo Reale, Fernand Léger. Mostra antologica, 1989, no. 39, illustrated in color in the catalogue 
Villeneuve d'Ascq, Musée d'art moderne, Fernand Léger, 1990, no. 43, illustrated in color in the catalogue 

Gilles Néret, Fernand Léger, Paris, 1990, no. 289, illustrated p. 208
Georges Bauquier, Fernand Léger Catalogue raisonné 1938-1943, Paris, 1993, no. 1116, illustrated in color p. 222

This work is in very good condition. The canvas is not lined. The paint layer is richly textured and the pigments are bright and fresh. Under UV light: a few spots of retouching visible around the extreme edges and in the upper right corner. A few pindots of inpainting in the pale blue bubble in the center and the smaller blue bubble on the right side, otherwise fine.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Les Plongeurs en rouge et bleu, painted in 1943 just after Léger moved to the United States, marks what would become the artist's definitive style after World War II. Composed mainly of large blocks of primary colors, the picture encapsulate's Léger's belief that, "Truth in painting is color at its fullest: red, black, yellow since pure tones in paintings is reality." This philosophy governed the color palette for the present work, in which bands and patches of primary colors overlap the figural elements of the composition and all of the figures are transparent and appear to recede into the background of the picture plane. “In his series based on divers, Léger experimented not only with the representation of the human body but also—and primarily—with painting as such, i.e. the visual subject, pictorial space and dimensions, and the relationship between color and drawing. The way had been paved with the Perroquets series in Paris, but the works in the Plongeurs series in New York were the real breakthrough (see figs. 2 & 3). In these, Léger separated color from drawing and sought to establish a new relationship between figurative and abstract painting. What he was looking for was a changed balance between the various formal elements of painting” (Daniel Kramer, “Emancipated Drawing as Modernist Figure Painting: Fernand Léger’s Mural Les plongeurs,” in Fernand Léger (exhibition catalogue), Fondation Beyeler, Basel, 2008, p. 98). The artist further describes his intentions as, “I’ve attempted to translate the character of the human body moving freely in space without touching the ground. …I’ve separated color from drawing and liberated it from shape by arranging it in large color fields without forcing it to follow the outlines of objects. It thus retains its entire force, as does the drawing” (quoted in André Warnod, “’L’Amérique ce n’est pas un pays, c’est un monde,’ dit Fernand Léger,” in Arts, vol. 49, Paris, January 4, 1946, p. 2).

Discussing the inspiration for this series, Léger recounts that, “In 1940 I was working on my Divers in Marseilles. Five or six men diving. I left for the United States and one day went to a swimming pool there. The divers were no longer five or six but two hundred at once. Just try and find yourself! Whose is that head? Whose is that leg? Whose are those arms? I hadn’t a clue. So I scattered the limbs in my picture. I think I was far closer to the truth in that than Michelangelo was when he studied the detail of the muscles of each limb” (quoted in Werner Schmalenbach, Fernand Léger, Cologne, 1977, p. 110). Indeed the United States would prove to be the incubator for this series, culminating in Léger’s celebrated commission for the living room of Wallace K. Harrison’s home in Huntington, Long Island (see fig. 4). The large format mural is the most important privately commissioned work Léger executed in the United States and the present work, painted the same year, illustrates Léger’s process of mutating and rearranging figures while also giving some indication of what the Harrison mural might have looked like had it been colored. Harrison was Nelson A. Rockefeller’s architect and had commissed murals and a fireplace decoration from Léger for Rockefeller’s New York apartment in 1939. In comparison to these earlier installations, the Plongeurs mural of 1943 was not only vastly larger (almost 35 feet across) but also more dynamic, confident and assertive. It also differed in the inclusion of figures, which was at the core of Léger’s bold new post-war style. “Representations of the human figure were of great importance to Léger, but had to be done without compromising the achievements of modern painting in any way—i.e. no return to realism or naturalism. Léger’s figures are art figures: abstract, interchangeable, flexible. In this way, monumentality could be paired with economy. Les plongeurs is a triumph of figure painting and drawing in modernism. The painting represent joie de vivre on a large scale” (Daniel Kramer, ibid., p. 99). The present work is one of only a few from the seminal Plongeurs series to remain in private hands a🌠nd has never before appeared at auction.