Roderick Conway-Morris

The tubular joys of Fernand Léger

As a new Venetian exhibition shows, the Cubist was a pioneer in poster design and experimental film as well as a painter

Fernand Léger ‘s ‘The City’, 1919 [Getty Images/Shutterstock/iStock/Alamy] 
issue 22 March 2014

In 1914 Fernand Léger gave a lecture about modern art. By then recognised as a leading Cubist artist, he had the year before signed up with the dealer Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, who already represented Picasso and Braque.

‘If pictorial expression has changed, it is because modern life has necessitated it,’ Léger argued.

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