Fernand Léger (1881–1955), The Musicians (Les Musiciens), 1975 (1920)

Color lithograph based on a drawing from 1920, on paper, 35 x 35 cm (inside the mat), mounted in a frame measuring 49 x 49 cm; signed on the stone “F.L. 20” at the bottom right;
Publisher: Galerie Berggruen in collaboration with Nadia Leger (née Wanda Chodasiewicz-Grabowska), lithographed at the Desjobert workshop in Paris (in operation since the 19th century, a favorite spot of the greatest artists, from Picasso to Dalí).
Presented at the exhibition titled “Light Oil Paintings, Watercolors, and Drawings” at the Berggruen Gallery in 1975.
Joseph Fernand Henri Léger (born February 4, 1881, in Argentan; died August 17, 1955, in Gif-sur-Yvette) — a French painter associated with Cubism, printmaker, sculptor, ceramic artist, and film director.
Léger was not a “haunted” artist. He loved the city, machines, factories, and ordinary people. He was called a “tubist” (from the French term tubisme) because, instead of painting realistic figures, he constructed them from forms resembling tubes, cylinders, and machine parts. Léger was so fascinated by machines that he once said, “The structure of a locomotive is more beautiful than a nude woman in a museum.” From around 1910, he created in his distinctive style, composing abstract and semi-abstract works featuring cylindrical forms. He reduced the human figure to its pure shape. Mechanical forms are a constant element in his work, for example, in his designs for the Swedish Ballet (1921–1922), frescoes (such as the polychrome decoration of the stadium in Brussels, 1935), as well as in the abstract film *Ballet mécanique* (1924) with music by George Antheil.
Musicians (Les Musiciens) were one of his favorite themes; for him, music was mathematics and order—that is, what he valued most in art. The accordionist and the double bassist are figures plucked straight from the streets of Paris or working-class bars.
His student, who became his assistant in 1948 and his wife in 1952, was Nadia Léger (1904–1982, formerly known as Wanda Chodasiewicz-Grabowska)