painter, ceramist, sculptor and proud Norman

Born in 1881 in Argentan (Orne), Fernand Léger, one of the first Cubist painters, is an essential figure in modern art. And the Lisores museum (Calvados), where several of his works reside, upholds the memory of the artist.

His rich work spanned the entire first half of the 20th century. Fernand Léger is a painter with a fertile imagination who, however, was not predestined to brushes. Son of a Norman cattle breeder, he grew up in Argentan before working for an architect in Caen. A first fruitful contact with the world of creation.

Look at this portrait by Laurent Marvyle, Jeoffrey Ledoyen and Marc Michel:

Fernand Léger went to Paris at the age of 19. An avant-garde Paris where, as a student at the Beaux-Arts, he quickly rubbed shoulders with artists on the rise, such as the painters Robert Delaunay, Marc Chagall and André Mare – with whom he shared a studio – or the writer Blaise Cendrars .

He was marked by the retrospective devoted to Paul Cézanne, who died in 1906, but soon developed his own techniques. A free, colorful painting, with geometric shapes and stylized figures.

Jack of all trades of genius, sometimes ceramist, designer and even sculptor, on the front in 1914, he drew on makeshift supports before being injured, hospitalized then discharged in 1917. Subsequently, he painted modern life, inspired by cities industrial.

It was in the 1930s that Fernand Léger’s career took off. He exhibits in Europe and the United States. This is also where he chose to go at the start of the Second World War, meeting up with some of his exiled friends.

He invented other techniques, dissociating colors and shapes, like on this canvas where the pigments move away from the pattern, it is the color outside:

Marked by what he saw in the United States, Fernand Léger was inspired by American architecture, which he described in 1955 as beautiful.in its absolutely rational sense“, describing to journalist Pierre Dumayet: “Rational is beautiful, often without looking for decorative elements. It’s rationally beautiful.“

Despite this expatriation and his love for Paris where he cut his teeth, Fernand Léger maintains very important Norman roots. His second wife, Nadia Léger, said of him in 1970: “Il You have to live with Fernand Léger to know how much he loved Normandy and his native country. He was proud to be Norman.“

In Lisores, a village in the heart of the Pays d’Auge that the artist particularly appreciated, the latter set up a farm museum in 1971 to pay homage to him.

A 17th century building which the painter inherited in 1922 upon the death of his mother, and which became his summer studio for 33 years. “I think he will be very happy that his works are now here“, assured Nadia Léger.

The other living trace of his art is found today in Saint-Lô: this fresco made in mosaic, on the wall of the Memorial hospital center, inaugurated in 1956. A year after the painter’s death from a seizure heart attack, on August 17, 1955, in Gif-sur-Yvette (Essonne), at the age of 74.