Magnet Fernand Léger - The Constructeurs (definitive), 1950

Fernand Léger (1881-1955)
The Constructeurs (definitive), 1950
Oil on canvas, 300 x 228 cm
Donation of Nadia Léger and Georges Bauquier, musée national Fernand Léger.

In the early 1950s, Fernand Léger produced the Constructeurs series. This piece is the most accomplished version of the eponymous series...

Fernand Léger (1881-1955)
The Constructeurs (definitive), 1950
Oil on canvas, 300 x 228 cm
Donation of Nadia Léger and Georges Bauquier, musée national Fernand Léger.

In the early 1950s, Fernand Léger produced the Constructeurs series. This piece is the most accomplished version of the eponymous series. Worried about how the modern artist can approach the people, he hangs his Constructeurs in the canteen of the Renault factories:

"At noon, the workers arrived. [...] Some of them were snickering. "Look at them, but they could never work those guys with hands like that" [...] Me, I listened to them and sadly swallowed my soup. Eight days later [...] the atmosphere had changed. The guys weren't laughing, they weren't looking at the paintings. Yet quite a few of them [...] would look up, glance at my paintings for a moment, then dive back into the plate. [...] And when I was about to leave, here's a guy who says to me: "You'll see [...] when we've removed the canvases, when they have the bare wall in front of them, they'll realize what your colors are [...]."