About This Artwork

Fernand Léger
French, 1881-1955

Les saltimbanques, 1940

Charcoal, with stumping, erasing, scraping, and wetting on pink wove paper, altered to a tan tone, squared with charcoal for transfer
1,071 x 905 mm
Signed recto, lower right, in charcoal: "F. L./ 40"
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Daniel Saidenberg in honor of Mr. and Mrs. L. E. Block, 1973.719

© 2008 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris

Exhibition, Publication and Ownership Histories

Exhibition History

New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, "Fernand Léger: Five Themes and Variations," February 28–April 29, 1962, pp. 83 and 86, cat. 75 (ill.), as Acrobats and Musicians.

New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, "20th Century Master Drawings," November 6, 1963–January 5, 1964, cat. 70, pl. 41; traveled to the University of Minnesota, Minn., February 3–March 15, 1964; and Cambridge, Mass., the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, April 6–May 24, 1964.

Chicago, Arts Club, "Drawings 1916-1966," February 28–March 11, 1966, n.p., cat. 57.

New York, The Museum of Modern Art, "Fernand Léger," 1966, cat. 13.

New York, Saidenberg Gallery, "Fernand Léger: Gouaches, Watercolors & Drawings from 1910-1953," November 12–December 7, 1968, cat. 31 (ill.).

Paris, Grand Palais, "Fernand Léger," October 1971–January 1972, pp. 147 and 160, cat. 257 (ill.).

New York, The Museum of Modern Art, "Fernand Léger," March–November 1976, cat. 28 (ill.); traveled to the Adelaide, Australia, Art Gallery of South Australia; Sydney, Australia, the Art Gallery of New South Wales; Melbourne, Australia, the National Gallery of Victoria; and Auckland, New Zealand, the City of Auckland Art Gallery.

Publication History

Ira Moskowitz, Great Drawings of All Time IV (New York, 1962), pl. 1078.

Una E. Johnson, Drawings of the Masters: 20th Century Drawings, Part I: 1900–1940 (New York, 1964), p.125 (ill.).

Jean Cassou and Jean Leymarie, Fernand Léger: Dessins et gouaches (Paris, 1972), p. 146–7, no. 212 (ill.).

Claude Laugier and Michèle Richet, Léger: Oeuvres de Fernand Léger (1881–1955) (Paris, 1981), pp. 120 and 121, fig. 5.

Ownership History

Curt Valentin Gallery, New York. G. David Thompson (1899–1965), Pittsburgh. Daniel (1907–1997) and Eleanore (1911–1999) Saidenberg, New York, by 1962 [New York 1962]; given to the Art Institute, 1973.