Post Show

BASEL—Perhaps to encourage art lovers to linger in the Swiss city on the Rhine after Art Basel winds down, the Fondation Beyeler has mounted a masterful tribute to Fernand Léger, Cubist hero of the machine age. Featuring monumental examples of 85 of the French artist’s oeuvre, “Fernand Léger: Paris—New York,” on view through September 7, draws from both public and private holdings. Femme en bleu, 1912, a large Cubist portrait, hails from Basel’s Kunstmuseum, for example, while The Clown, 1918, a smaller work, in which the subject is composed from an arrangement of playing cards and mechanical elements, is on loan from an Israeli collector. Special emphasis is placed on pieces made during Léger’s 1940-45 exile in the U.S., which demonstrate the profound influence he had Stateside—particularly on the Pop art movement. That dialogue is evident in the 20 canvases included by such artists as Jasper Johns, Ellsworth Kelly and Roy Lichtenstein. “The Americans not only worked on his concepts; they developed them,” says Beyeler curator Philippe Büttner. “Seeing them together, you discover new things in Léger.”

"Post Show" originally appeared in the July 2008 issue of Art+Auction. For a complete list of articles from the July issue available on ARTINFO, see Art+Auction's July 2008 Table of Contents.