(Argentan 1881–1955 Gif-sur-Yvette)
L’anniversaire, c. 1950, monogrammed, numbered and titled on the reverse, gouache and ink on paper laid down on panel, 76 x 55 cm (whole sheet), 68 x 55 cm (painted area), framed

This work is accompanied by a photo certificate issued by Irus Hansma, 16 September 2021 and will be included in the “Répertoire des oeuvres sur papier de Fernand Léger” currently being prepared

This work is registered in the Archive of the Comité Leger, Paris and is accompanied by a photo certificate of authenticity

Provenance:
Musée Fernand Léger, Biot (label on the reverse with archive no. G63/bis)
European private collection (actual owner)

Exhibited:
Cherasco, I grandi maestri della pittura internazionale da Picasso a Fontana, Palazzo Salmatoris, 4 October–14 December 2003 (label on the reverse), exh. cat. p. 63 with ill.

Arona, Femme fatale. Il mito universale della donna nell’ arte, Villa Ponti, 31 July–7 November 2004, exh. cat. p. 85 with ill. (label on the reverse)

Note:
A print was then created by the artist on this subject

From around the 1930s onwards, a more mature and disenchanted Léger strove to make popular, genuine art that communicated clearly and effectively, in an accessible language, to a wide audience that had otherwise little opportunity to enjoy it. In this sense, despite the syntax and modern 'construction' typical of his late mural style, L'Anniversaire is a universally communicative and engaging painting. The scene reproduced here by the artist is an intimate one from everyday life. The two women might be celebrating a youthful birthday or a playful occasion while holding a vase. The woman is presented as a modern Demeter or Flora, reminiscent of the goddesses of antiquity seen on a classical Attic vase, entwined with flowers and with limbs like tendrils. The two young women are Léger's current and ordinary embodiment of the feminine dimension and characterisation of fertility myths drawn from humanity's deepest past. They are both healthy and strong, seen here in a snapshot that identifies them as idealised social types who are living their lives serenely and calmly without distinctions of class. The underlying faith in social utopia, strongly celebrated by the Master, would have brought this about.
Peter de Francia, a prolific University Professor at the Royal College of Art in London who has produced a great deal on the Master, has written:

"In the last decade of his working life Léger was completely absorbed in trying to create a language in which a balance could be established between familiar imagery, an architectural function of painting and themes that emphasised the permanence of man. The problem was an extraordinarily difficult one. The figures in his paintings could easily have become the equivalent of cult images. Léger avoided this by making them approachable. The intensity of reality is achieved by contrasting prosaic objects with pictorial artifice... (Fernand Léger, New Haven, 1983, p. 228).
In his art we do not perceive tension and anguish for what history was showing. He did not want to induce introspective socio-political reflections. He showed an aesthetic of play and conviviality, a simple message that seems to speak of the resilience of humanity, the ability to know how to go on despite difficulties. In this he embraced, as many modern artists have done, the mythical and classical foundations of human culture.

"We are experiencing space more than ever before. Man is growing and expanding in all directions; there is a competition to escape and leave behind all earthly constraints, to escape what is solid and concrete. A nervous mobility is taking over the world. Everything is moving and escaping from traditional constraints... And yet, we also want to go back, to see life flowing in reverse, like a film: all the traditional sanctuaries and safe havens come back, the lights go out, hierarchies and inexplicable mysteries are re-established, and we rediscover respect for the great forces of nature. Birds will always be beautifully dressed in colour, progress is a meaningless word, and a cow that feeds the world will always move at three kilometres an hour". (quoted in G. Néret, F. Léger, New York, 1993, p. 238).