Mechanical Forms

Prints and Drawings

1923

Fernand Léger
French, 1881–1955

Mechanical Forms shows a woman from the shoulders up, in near profile and facing right, with one hand covering the lower part of her face. The background is a grid of dark bands, circles, and curved elements.

The drawing’s title refers to the logic of industrial order that Fernand Léger claimed for his work even when it did not directly depict machines. The highly finished Mechanical Forms is only an intermediate stage in the artist’s evolving conception of this figure, which resulted in three paintings over a span of six years.

Status: Currently Off View
Department: Prints and Drawings

Artist: Fernand Léger
Title: Mechanical Forms
Place: France (Artist's nationality)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: Made 1923
Medium: Graphite and white gouache on cream wove paper, laid down on tan wove card
Inscriptions: Signed and dated, lower right, in graphite: "F. L. 23"
Dimensions: 42.3 × 31.9 cm (16 11/16 × 12 9/16 in.)
Credit Line: Gift of Richard and Mary L. Gray
Reference Number: 2022.83

Peter De Francia, “Fernand Léger” (Yale University Press, 1983), p. 83, fig. 5.10 (as “Untitled”)

Art Institute of Chicago, Gray Collection: Seven Centuries of Art, Sept. 25, 2010–Jan. 20, 2011, cat. 92 (ill.).
Art Institute of Chicago, Pure Drawing: Seven Centuries of Art from the Gray Collection, Jan. 25–Oct. 12, 2020; traveled to New York, Morgan Library and Museum, Feb. 19–June 6, 2021 and Berkeley, UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, Aug. 4–Nov. 28, 2021.

Saidenberg Gallery, New York. Mr. and Mrs. Howard Wolfson, Chicago; sold through Richard Gray Gallery to Richard and Mary L. Gray and the Gray Collection Trust, Chicago, May 21, 2003 (promised to the Art Institute of Chicago, 2018); given to the Art Institute of Chicago, 2022.

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