Fernand Léger Value: Top Prices Paid at Auction

Contraste De Formes (1913) achieved Léger's current auction record when it sold at Christie's New York in November 2017. Part of his groundbreaking Contrast of Forms series, this oil painting exemplifies Léger's pivotal contribution to abstract art through its bold juxtaposition of geometric forms and colours that transcend formal representation. It was created before Léger's frontline service in World War I, and demonstrates his early interest in reducing objects to their essential geometric components - a concept that would become central to his practice. Its exceptional sale price highlights the market's recognition of Léger's profound influence on the development of abstraction and his position alongside Picasso and Braque in revolutionising modern art.

La Femme En Bleu (1912-13) achieved this result at Sotheby's New York in May 2008 - a record for Léger that held for almost a decade. This painting represents Léger's transition into analytical Cubism with his distinctive emphasis on volumetric forms. Unlike the flattened planes favoured by Picasso and Braque, Léger maintained a sense of three-dimensionality in his Cubist compositions. The painting features a woman seated in a chair, abstracted into a series of cylindrical and circular shapes that demonstrate Léger's interest in reducing the human figure to its essential components. Created shortly after his exposure to aviation design at the 1912 Salon d'Automne, the piece shows his developing fascination with mechanical aesthetics that would become his signature.

Le Grand Déjeuner (1921) sold at Christie's New York in May 2018, securing its place as one of Léger's most significant post-war paintings to appear at auction. The painting's title, “The Big Breakfast,” references traditional leisurely meals and a traditional subject for art at the time. The period following World War I represented Léger's engagement with le rappel à l'ordre ("the call to order"), a movement in French art that sought to restore classical order after wartime chaos. However, Léger interpreted this return to order through his unique lens, creating figures with tubular forms that echo machine parts while maintaining human gestures. This fusion reflects his belief that everyday modern life, like having breakfast, required new representation in art - one that acknowledged the growing influence of machinery in everyday experience.

Le 14 Juillet (1912-13) sold at Phillips London in November 2023, after being largely kept in private collections since its creation - it was originally gifted by the artist to Marc Duchène, and was only sold by Duchène’s family in 1999. This vibrant depiction of Bastille Day uses fragmented geometric shapes to capture the energy and movement of the festivities, rather than specific details. This technique later gave way to his fascination with modern urban experience. His interest in popular culture and everyday life reflects his democratic approach to art - a belief that artistic expression should be accessible to, and reflective of, all social classes. The work's successful sale nearly a century after its creation demonstrates the enduring appeal of Léger's distinctive vision of modern life.

La Femme En Rouge Et Vert (1914) secured £3million above its high estimate at Christie's New York in November 2003, marking what was then a record price for the artist. This large canvas is again from Léger's early Cubist phase. The female figure, although abstracted, is more visible than in contemporary works such as La Femme En Bleu (1912-13). The piece was created on the eve of World War I, and therefore represents a crucial moment in Léger's artistic development and his personal life - this was a period in which he was synthesising his Cubist principles, but also about to undergo great trauma and change as a stretcher-bearer in the war and part of the engineering corps.

Les Cylindres Colorés (1918) also achieved £3million above its high estimate when it sold at Christie's London in February 2014. This piece was, however, created in the immediate aftermath of World War I - after his removal from service in 1917 following hospitalisation after being gassed on the Aisne Front - and thus reflects Léger's post-war enthusiasm for technology and industry as symbols of reconstruction and progress. The vibrant colours and dynamic, almost-moving parts, seem to be positive and productive. Rather than rejecting technology after witnessing its destructive potential, Léger embraced it as a symbol of human advancement, believing machines could be integrated harmoniously into society.

Nature Morte (1914), translating to “Still Life,” achieved this result at Sotheby's London in July 2020, after remaining in private European art collections since 1955. Apart from brief displays at the Galerie Kahnweiler, Paris, pre-1955 and the Fundación Juan March, Madrid, in 1983, the piece had largely remained out of the public eye. Unlike the more fragmented approach of the artist’s later contributions to Analytical Cubism, this work maintains a looser sense of volume and three-dimensionality. All structure and depth is added to the composite shapes using contrasting tones and colours. Léger's still lifes from this period reveal his debt to Cézanne's structured approach to form, but push further toward abstraction.

Another overtly mechanical-themed work, Le Moteur (1918) secured more than double its high estimate at Christie's New York in November 2001 - a record at the time. This large oil painting directly depicts an engine. After watching so many war machines destroyed and then immediately replaced, like the soldiers themselves on the frontline, Léger believed that machines represented a new form of beauty - one that artists should acknowledge and incorporate into their work. Sections of the piece are unusually representational, with metal nails, wooden rods, and joinery clearly visible. The painting was sold out of the René Gaffé Collection in aid of Unicef, a fact that will have contributed to its success at auction.

Another work from Léger's productive year of 1918, Les Deux Acrobates (1918) met its high estimate precisely at Christie's New York in May 2022, representing one of Léger's most recent major sales. Part of his series on circus performers, this painting reflects his fascination with the Cirque Médrano in Montmartre, a favourite venue for Léger and his artistic contemporaries before World War I. The circus represented for Léger an ideal subject - combining spectacle, movement, and popular entertainment with mechanical precision and physical discipline. It was the perfect basis for his exploration of movement through static forms, which was heavily influenced by chronophotography and early cinema.

One of Léger’s classic domestic scenes, Le Corsage Rouge (1922), sold for £9,558,000 at Christie's New York in May 2015. By 1922, Léger had fully developed his mature style, and this example features two women – one clothed and one reclining nude – rendered in geometric shapes, bold colours, and black outlines. The painting's grid-like spatial organisation echoes the influence of Seurat's compositional techniques, while the exaggerated size and roundness of the figures reflect Léger's interest in classical sources. The title's reference to the red bodice worn by one figure places her as the focus and draws attention to Léger's use of colour as both a structural and an emotive tool. This piece, rounding off Léger's top 10 auction results, demonstrates the perfect combination of all his stylistic quirks.