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Notes
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In this bold painting, Léger uses the traditional still-life format as a vehicle to explore form, colour and shape. These elements are explicitly the subject of the painting and given equal emphasis. Léger was interested in what he called 'the spectacle of objects' - new modes of aesthetic experience, which he believed corresponded to the proliferation of mass-produced objects within the human environment. His interest in the contrast of constructive forces, between the naturally and mechanically produced, is expressed through the motifs of the active red 'gear', a plant form and a passive blue jug on a table. These appear in a number of works by the artist from the late 1930s, most notably the mural he executed in Nelson A. Rockefeller's apartment in New York in 1938–1939.
Pallant House Gallery
Chichester
Title
L'engrenage rouge – Nature morte en rouge et bleu (The Red Gear – Still Life in Red and Blue)
Date
1939
Medium
oil on canvas
Measurements
H 49.2 x W 64.2 cm
Accession number
CHCPH 0592
Acquisition method
bequeathed by Charles Kearley, through the National Art Collections Fund, 1989
Work type
Painting
Inscription description
39 F. Leger
Pallant House Gallery
9 North Pallant, Chichester, West Sussex PO19 1TJ England
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L'engrenage rouge – Nature morte en rouge et bleu (The Red Gear – Still Life in Red and Blue) Pallant House Gallery -
Keys (Composition) (Les Clés (Composition)) Tate -
Playing Card and Pipe (Carte et pipe) Tate -
Leaves and Shell (Feuilles et coquillage) Tate -
Young Girl Holding a Flower The Fitzwilliam Museum -
Femme et nature morte (Woman and Still Life) National Galleries of Scotland: Modern -
Le tronc d'arbre sur fond jaune (Tree Trunk on Yellow Ground) National Galleries of Scotland: Modern - 8 more
