Exhibition of the 29 plates of the album  La Ville/ the City by Fernand Léger, the Arenthon gallery. Starting  from January 19th.

« Fernand Léger had conceived the project of illustrating a book with the theme of the city, i.e. Paris. Paris which had inspired his work since The Hive and the Vaugirard Slaughterhouses, passing by Montparnasse and the rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs, across the Seine and its tugboats, the Street, its lovers, its soldiers and its merchants of four seasons, its stations, the quays and their bird merchants, the Eiffel Tower and the Opera.

Old or recent memories like the radio singer or the gas pump, – Lifetime memories which are combined with those of the work and which evoke the universe of his painting, his own world, this world which is the very essence of life… Léger had many more things to say about his city, about the streets where he always liked to find a new element to include in his painting some day» – Preface of the album La Ville / the City, Tériade Publishing house, 1959

Fernand Léger’s project did not see the light of day before his death in 1955, and subsequently, his wife Nadia Léger and Fernand Mourlot gathered and completed the plates out of text intended for this work, to make up the album La Ville / the City, edited by Tériade in 1959.