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Details
- Alternative title
- La Bicyclette
- Date
- 1930
- Media category
- Painting
- Materials used
- oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 64.8 x 50.8 cm stretcher; 83.0 x 68.2 x 4.0 cm frame
- Signature & date
Signed and dated l.r., blue oil "F.LÉGER./ 30" and u.l. verso, black oil "... / F. LÉGER. 30".
- Credit
- Gift of Mrs HV Evatt in memory of the late Dr HV Evatt 1966
- Location
- South Building, ground level, 20th-century galleries
- Accession number
- OO2.1966
- Copyright
- © Estate of Fernand Leger/ADAGP. Copyright Agency
- Artist information
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Fernand Léger
Works in the collection
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About
From the late 1920s, the French avant-garde painter Fernand Léger shifted from the frenetic fractures of his earlier cubist compositions to an abstraction of more emphatic formations. Using bold, defined shapes, distilled of embellishment, he painted odd juxtapositions of objects and block colours, as well as between natural and manufactured forms, seen as parts or complete.
Suspended in ethereal space, Léger’s objects, including this bicycle, are brought together in connections that seem inexplicable and mysterious. Leger’s ‘purified’ form of cubism, as it came to be known, here entered the realms of surrealist imaging.
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Exhibition history
Shown in 12 exhibitions
Fernand Leger, Palais des Beaux Arts, Belgium, 14 May 1938–05 Jun 1938
The Daily Telegraph exhibition of French and British modern art, National Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 21 Aug 1939–17 Sep 1939
The Daily Telegraph exhibition of French and British modern art, Melbourne Town Hall, Melbourne, 16 Oct 1939–01 Nov 1939
The Daily Telegraph exhibition of French and British modern art, David Jones' Art Gallery, Sydney, Sydney, 20 Nov 1939–30 Dec 1939
An exhibition of French art at the National Art Gallery of New South Wales, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 04 Oct 1944–31 Oct 1944
Contemporary Art Society Loan Exhibition, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 1950–1950
Purchases and Acquisitions for 1966, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 27 Apr 1967–07 May 1967
1988 Australian Biennale: from the Southern Cross: a view of world art c.1940-88, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 18 May 1988–03 Jul 1988
1988 Australian Biennale: from the Southern Cross: a view of world art c.1940-88, National Gallery of Victoria [St Kilda Road], Melbourne, 04 Aug 1988–18 Sep 1988
Australian Cubism, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne, 24 Nov 2009–08 Apr 2010
Theatre of The World, Museum of Old and New Art, Tasmania, 23 Jun 2012–07 Apr 2013
Matisse and the moderns, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 25 Apr 2015–25 Oct 2015
Modernists: selections from the European collection, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 07 Nov 2015–25 Apr 2016
Mary Alice Evatt: Art for the People, Blue Mountains Cultural Centre, Katoomba, 12 May 2018–24 Jun 2018
20th-Century galleries, ground level (rehang), Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 20 Aug 2022–2023
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Bibliography
Referenced in 12 publications
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Art Gallery of New South Wales, Art Gallery of New South Wales picturebook, Sydney, 1972, 49 (colour illus.).
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Nicholas Chambers, The Sydney Modern Project. Transforming the Art Gallery of New South Wales, 'Between here and there: collecting and displaying modern and contemporary international art', Sydney, 2022, pp 142–57: p 157, footnote 9.
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Renee Free, Art and Australia, 'European Collection', p.63-75, Sydney, Jul 1972, 75 (illus.).
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Lionel Lindsay, Addled Art, Sydney, 1942, 24 (illus. op.).
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Ann Stephen, Cubism & Australian art, 'La Bicyclette [The bicycle]', pg. 14-15, Melbourne, 2009, 15 (colour illus.).
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Jill Sykes (Editor), Look, 'Battle of the new: Picasso and peers versus the pillars of the Australian art establishment', pg. 14-18, Sydney, Mar 2005, 18 (colour illus.).
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Nick Waterlow (Director), The 1988 Australian Biennale: from the Southern Cross: a view of world art c.1940-88, Sydney, 1988, 179 (colour illus.). no catalogue numbers
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Editor Unknown (Editor), Contemporary Art Society Loan Exhibition, Sydney, 1950. cat.no. 54
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An exhibition of French art at the National Art Gallery of N.S.W, Sydney, 1944. cat.no. 113
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Editor Unknown (Editor), Art Gallery of New South Wales Quarterly, 'New acquisitions', Sydney, Apr 1967, (illus.).
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Editor Unknown (Editor), The Daily Telegraph exhibition of French and British modern art, Sydney, 1939. cat.no. 58
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unknown author., The Sydney Morning Herald, 'Review - 1988 Biennale', Sydney, 21 May 1988, (illus.).
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Provenance
Paul Rosenberg, pre Dec 1939, Paris/France, Listed in 1939 exhibition catalogue as in Rosenberg's collection
Dr. H.V. Evatt, Dec 1939-Mar 1966, Australia, Purchased by Dr Evatt from David Jones Art Gallery, December 1939. Purchased from 'The Daily Telegraph Exhibition of French and British Modern Art'.
Mrs H.V. Evatt, pre 25 Mar 1966, Australia, Gift of Mrs H.V. Evatt 1966
