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Jean Legros (1917–1981) The Cranes of Beaubourg 1977 Acrylic…
See original version (French)
260
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Jean Legros (1917–1981) The Cranes of Beaubourg 1977 Acrylic…
See original version (French)
Estimate €2,500 - €4,000
Voluntary lot
Description
Jean Legros (1917–1981) The Cranes of Beaubourg 1977 Acrylic on canvas, signed and dated lower right 132 x 114 cm Condition report: Framed ‘Soft’ cranes are rare; they depict these machines warped by the Parisian heat... The artist, whose style is often smooth and clean, allows the brushstrokes to show through on the white background here, creating a distinctive atmosphere.
From childhood, Jean Legros was surrounded by art, his father having connections with artists such as André Derain, Charles Despiau and Henri Laurens… his artistic vocation was interrupted by the War, which claimed the life of his brother, a member of the Resistance, who was shot in 1943. In 1945, he qualified as a shepherd, a trade he practised for a year – a period of isolation that was no doubt necessary – before returning to Paris to embrace his destiny as an artist. He then became friends with Agnès Varda, trained under the great abstract artist Jean Dewasne, and gradually moved away from figurative art towards minimalist geometric abstraction. In the 1970s, he reached the essence of his style (the ‘Toiles à Bandes’, ‘Ronds musicaux’ and ‘Espaces biais’ series) and, in particular, with the superb series we are presenting here: ‘Les Grues de Beaubourg’. Fascinated by Renzo Piano’s project and, above all, by the scale of the works on the Beaubourg site, Jean Legros took photographs of the cranes overseeing the construction; he drew on these prints, retaining only the outlines to form broad strokes – sometimes distorted by the weather – in the primary colours that would come to represent the Musée national d’Art moderne. Despite the significance of his work and strong support (from Aurélie Nemours, Jean Leppien and others), the artist, a solitary figure, suffered from a sense of being misunderstood and took his own life in 1981. A few years after his death, the artist Roger Leloup stated that ‘he remains to France what Barnett Newman is to the United States’. With the Centre Pompidou closed for renovation and the rise of minimal abstraction, we can safely assume that Jean Legros’s work will be given a new opportunity to fulfil its destiny.
See original version (French)
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