About This Artwork

Fernand Léger
French, 1881–1955

The Railway Crossing (Sketch), 1919

Oil on canvas
21 5/16 x 25 7/8 in. (54.1 x 65.7 cm)
Signed, l.r.: "F. LEGER"
Signed, dated, and inscribed on verso. u.l.: "LE PASSAGE A NIVEAU/ESQUISSE/F LEGER—/19"
Joseph Winterbotham Collection; gift of Mrs. Patrick Hill in memory of Rue Winterbotham Carpenter, 1953.341

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

Exhibition, Publication and Ownership Histories

Exhibition History

Chicago, Arts Club, Loan Exhibition of Modern Paintings Privately Owned by Chicagoans, January 4–18, 1929, cat. 29, as Abstraction.

New York, Museum of Modern Art, Paintings in Paris from American Collections, January 19–February 16, 1930, pp. 31–32, cat. 47 (ill.).

Chicago, Renaissance Society, University of Chicago, Exhibition of Modern French Paintings Loaned to the Renaissance Society, July 3–August 18, 1930, cat. 7, as Still Life.

Chicago, Renaissance Society, University of Chicago, Some Modern Primitives: International Exhibition of Paintings and Prints, July 2–August 16, 1931, cat. 39, as Abstraction.

New York, Valentine Gallery, Léger: New Paintings, April 9–May 5, 1945, cat. 19, as Le Passage a Niveau.

New York, Museum of Modern Art, Fernand Léger, 1976, cat. 5 (ill.), as Study for The Level Crossing; traveled to Adelaide, Art Gallery of South Australia; Sydney, Art Gallery of New South Wales; and Melbourne, National Gallery of Victoria.

Buffalo, N.Y., Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Fernand Léger, January 15–February 28, 1982, pp. 33, 61, 78, cat. 15 (ill.), as Follow the Arrow (Le Passage à niveau); traveled to Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, March 11–April 18, 1982; and Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, May 17–June 27, 1982.

Chicago, Arts Club, Portrait of an Era: Rue Winterbotham Carpenter and the Arts Club of Chicago, 1916–1931, September 15–November 1, 1986, n. p., cat. 6, as Follow the Arrow (ill.).

New York, Acquavella Galleries, Fernand Léger, October 23–December 12, 1987, n. p., cat. 17 (ill.), as Le Passage à Niveau (Follow the Arrow).

Nagaoka, Japan, Niigata Prefectural Museum of Modern Art, Masterworks of Modern Art from The Art Institute of Chicago, April 20–May 29, 1994, pp. 108–109, cat. 30 (ill.); traveled to Nagoya, Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art, June 10–July 24, 1994; and Yokohama Museum of Art, August 6–September 25, 1994.

Publication History

Museum of Modern Art, Paintings in Paris from American Collections, exh. cat. (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1930), pp. 31–32, cat. 47 (ill.).

Valentine Gallery, Léger: New Paintings, exh. cat. (New York: Valentine Gallery, 1945), cat. 19, as Le Passage a Niveau.

Sidney Janis Gallery, Five Years of Janis, exh. cat. (New York: Sidney Janis Gallery, 1953), fig. 75 (ill.).

Paintings in The Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1961), pp. 257 and 435 (ill.).

Barry, Edward, “A Legacy that Grows—Winterbotham Collection,” The Chicago Tribune (August 25, 1963), p. F4, as Follow the Arrow.

Tate Gallery, Léger and Purist Paris, exh. cat. (London: Tate Gallery, 1970), p. 98, cat. 16.

Museum of Modern Art, Fernand Léger, exh. cat. (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1976), cat. 5 (ill.), as Study for The Level Crossing.

Speyer, A. James and Courtney Graham Donnell, Twentieth Century European Paintings (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980), p. 51, no. 2D9.

Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Fernand Léger, exh. cat. (Buffalo, N. Y.: Albright-Knox Art Gallery, 1982), pp. 33, 61, 78, cat. 15 (ill.), as Follow the Arrow (Le Passage à niveau).

Silver, Kenneth E., “Fernand Léger: Logic and Liberalism,” Art Journal 42:2 (Summer 1982), p. 152.

Art Institute of Chicago, The Joseph Winterbotham Collection: A Living Tradition (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1986), pp. 12, 38 (ill.), and 59, as Follow the Arrow, 1919.

Arts Club, Portrait of an Era: Rue Winterbotham Carpenter and the Arts Club of Chicago, 1916–1931, exh. cat. (Chicago: Arts Club, 1986), n. p., cat. 6, as Follow the Arrow (ill.).

Brutvan, Cheryl A., Masterworks on Paper from the Albright-Knox Art Gallery (New York: Hudson Hills Press, 1987), p. 64, note 1.

Acquavella Galleries, Fernand Léger, exh. cat. (New York: Acquavella Galleries, 1987), n. p., cat. 17 (ill.), as Le Passage à Niveau (Follow the Arrow).

Wood, James N. and Katharine C. Lee, Master Paintings in The Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1988), p. 126 (ill.).

Bauquier, Georges, Fernand Léger: Catalogue raisonné 1903-1919 (Paris: Adrien Maeght, 1990), p. 320, no. 181 (ill.).


Wood, James N., Treasures of 19th-and 20th-Century Painting: The Art Institute of Chicago (New York: Abbeville Press, 1993), p. 223 (ill.).

Barter, Judith A., Douglas W. Druick, and Charles F. Stuckey, Masterworks of Modern Art from The Art Institute of Chicago, exh. cat. (Tokyo: Asahi Shimbun, 1994), pp. 108–109, cat. 30 (ill.).

Wood, James N. and Teri J. Edelstein, The Art Institute of Chicago: Twentieth-Century Painting and Sculpture (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1996), p. 45 (ill.).

Ownership History

Rue Winterbotham Carpenter (Mrs. John Alden Carpenter, died 1931), from the late 1920s [letter from Manuel Gonzalez, April 17, 1975, in curatorial file]; by descent to her daughter, Mrs. Patrick Hill, Charlotte, Vt. [undated letter from Mrs. Patrick Hill in the curatorial file]; given to the Art Institute, 1953.