Three Women
Fernand Léger, 1921-22 · Gallery 513 · Floor 5
Okay, so look at that black animal behind the woman on the right. The wall label says cat. MoMA's own book says dog. And there's a letter from the painter about this picture. So, he might have some idea. Léger writes to Alfred Barr at MoMA about this painting. He'd painted The City. Buildings, signs, everything jammed together. Then he wanted the opposite. "A contrary force," he said. So he made, in his words, "an easel painting." Six feet by eight. That's one serious easel. Anyway, so he takes an old favorite. Three naked women on a couch. One's got a book open on her lap and a spoon in her cup. Nothing much happening. But look at her arms. Big, smooth tubes. Then that black rail across the sofa. Another tube. The other two, even their hair looks like polished metal. "The classical won," he tells Barr. So the women are there the way the cups and the furniture are. A human body, he said, counts for about as much as a set of keys. Now, about that animal. He's writing in English. The English gets a little tangled. Says he wanted subjects "treated during all the times by painters of other times." Then he gives Barr a little list. "Some women's bodies, one table, a dog."
Also in Gallery 513
- Three Musicians — Pablo Picasso, 1921
- Composition with Red, Blue, Black, Yellow, and Gray — Piet Mondrian, 1921
- Three Women at the Spring — Pablo Picasso, 1921