Fernand Léger !

The Fernand Léger ! exhibition, with an international profile, brings together more than 30 works by Fernand Léger (Argentan 1881 - Gif-sur-Yvette 1955), pioneer of contemporary art, in close comparison with European and American avant-garde artists active from the 1960s to the present day.

The project aims to illustrate the contemporaneity, multidisciplinarity and visionary scope of Fernand Léger’s work.

The exhibition path thus highlights the strong historical and artistic link between Léger’s work and the French art scene of the 1960s, in particular with the group of the New Realists who take possession of consumer society’s everyday objects and street aesthetics. The movement brings together artists such as Arman, César, Raymond Hains, Yves Klein, Martial Raysse, Daniel Spoerri and Niki de Saint Phalle.

Other periods and international movements like American Pop Art with Robert Indiana and May Wilson, as well as emerging artists in the 1970s and 1980s such as Gilbert & George in London and Keith Haring in New York are on display in the exhibition path in dialogue with Léger’s work.

The exhibition, based mainly on the collections of the Fernand Léger National Museum in Biot and the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MAMAC) in Nice, to which are added important loans from Centre Pompidou in Paris, is curated by:

Anne Dopffer, Director of the National Museums of the 20th Century in the Alpes-Maritimes - General Curator - and Julie Guttierez, Head Curator of Heritage Fernand Léger National Museum in Biot, and Rébecca François, Heritage Conservation Officer Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Nice (MAMAC) - Associate curators.

Exhibition co-organised by the Consortium of the Royal Residences of the House of Savoy, GrandPalaisRmn, from the National Museums of the 20th Century in the Alpes-Maritimes / Fernand Léger National Museum in Biot and from the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MAMAC) in Nice with the collaboration of ManifestoExpo and MondoMostre.