These works are available in the Fernand Léger National Museum bookshop, or can be consulted by appointment at the Fernand Léger National Museum documentation centre.
Catalogues published by the Réunion des musées nationaux-Grand Palais
Fernand Léger and the cinema (ed. Rmn - Grand Palais, 2022)
Catalogue of the Fernand Léger and the Cinema exhibition, organised in 2022, at the Musée national Fernand Léger, Biot.
This catalogue presents for the first time, and in an exhaustive manner, all of Léger's film projects, thus highlighting the strong and lasting relationship that the painter maintained throughout his career with the seventh art. In the midst of the First World War, Fernand Léger discovered Charlie Chaplin, who was a real revelation for the painter. From 1919 onwards, Fernand Léger's works reflect the influence of the cinematographic image on his artistic work: thus, the illustrated books produced in collaboration with the poets Blaise Cendrars and Yvan Goll play with the vocabulary of the cinema by introducing close-ups, typographical research and kinetic effects.
216 pages / 180 illustrations.
Price: 39 €.
Vis-à-vis. Fernand Léger et ses ami.e.s (éd. Rmn - Grand Palais, 2019)
Catalogue des trois expositions Vis-à-vis, organisées de 2017 à 2019, au musée national Fernand Léger, Biot.
This book includes all the artists presented at the three events. Richly illustrated, it is organised according to a chronological and thematic plan, punctuated by "focuses" on Fernand Léger's major friendships, whether in the world of the plastic arts or in the entertainment industry. Thus, for each decade, from the 1900s to the 1950s, works by Juan Gris, Albert Marquet, Constantin Brancusi, Pablo Picasso, Alexander Calder, Georges Braque, Henri Matisse, and twenty other artist-friends will be displayed in dialogue with Fernand Léger's works.
Historical and documentary photographs illustrate the main artistic events and issues between 1900 and 1950. Reflecting the artist's open and multidisciplinary spirit, the book is playful, modern, colourful and luminous.
192 pages / 170 illustrations.
Price : 35 €
Guide to the Fernand Léger National Museum, Biot (reissued by Rmn - Grand Palais, 2019)
with texts by Ariane Coulondre, Diana Gay and Nelly Maillard. Preface by Maurice Fréchuret.
Although Fernand Léger did not participate in the construction project, a museum housing his work was opened shortly after his death. Inaugurated in 1960 and placed under the auspices of the State a few years later, the Fernand Léger National Museum is in line with the generous thought of an artist who wanted so much to give people access to culture in general, and to the art of their time in particular. The museum intends to define itself as a place of study and research on the work it preserves, but also on other forms of expression (music, cinema, dance, etc.) that also shape the contemporary landscape. In this sense, it meets the criteria of any museum that thinks of itself and defines itself as a place of life open to the world and to what shapes it.
Versions : French - English.
Price: 8 €
L'été 1954 à Biot - Architecture, formes, couleur (ed. Rmn - Grand Palais, 2016).
catalogue of the eponymous exhibition, from 25 June to 26 September 2016, at the Musée national Fernand Léger, Biot
In the summer of 1954, the Groupe Espace organised the Architecture Formes Couleur exhibition in Biot, an opportunity to exhibit works embodying the "fundamental presence of plastic" to which humanity, according to the Group, was entitled. Founded by André Bloc and Felix Del Marle in 1951, the Groupe Espace wanted to overcome the traditional division between architecture, painting and sculpture in order to achieve the unity of art. It claims to seek "a concrete collaboration between architects, painters, sculptors and visual artists", rejecting a theoretical or personal practice. His creations must allow everyone to have access to a better living environment in order to promote "the harmonious development of all human activities".
114 pages, 120 illustrations.
Price : 29 €
Fernand Léger: Reconstructing the Real, 1924-1946 (ed. Rmn - Grand Palais, 2014).
Considered a "realist" painter in tune with the elements of modern life, Fernand Léger proposed, between 1924 and 1946, disconcerting associations of objects, playing with ruptures of scale, spatial arrangements of floating objects, and biomorphic metamorphosis motifs. While he remained faithful to "realism of conception", which he defined as that of line, form and colour, Léger was attentive to Surrealist plastic research, just as he had observed Cubism or Futurism.
A friend of Man Ray and Duchamp, and having emigrated to the United States in 1940, where he met up with Masson, Tanguy, Matta, Breton and Ernst around the Pierre Matisse gallery, Léger displayed his friendship with the Surrealist milieu, while at the same time claiming his independence.
136 pages, 120 illustrations.
Price : 35 €
Exiles Reminiscences and New Worlds (Rmn - Grand Palais edition, 2012).
Published on the occasion of the exhibition Exiles Reminiscences and New Worlds (June 24 to October 8, 2012), at the Musée Chagall in Nice, Musée Léger in Biot & Musée Picasso in Vallauris.
The essential experience of exile is common to Picasso, Chagall and Léger, at different times in history. For Chagall and Picasso, exile was a founding factor when they left for the fascinating Paris of the beginning of the century. For Léger, exile served as a new stimulus in the United States after the Second World War.
144 pages, 200 illustrations couleurs.
Price : 35 €
Disks and semaphores: the language of signals in Fernand Léger and his contemporaries (Rmn - Grand Palais edition, 2010).
Published on the occasion of the exhibition Disks and semaphores. Le langage du signal chez Léger et ses contemporains, presented at the Musée national Fernand Léger, Biot from June 20 to October 11, 2010.
The development of communication tools linked to the transformation of the urban landscape is of passionate interest to Fernand Léger, who is in search of a painting that is in tune with the "new visual state" of the modern world. Signs, letters, pictograms, signs and posters are found in his works in the form of plastic motifs, sometimes schematised to the point of abstraction.
Price : 45 €
Dis-moi Blaise. Léger, Chagall, Picasso and Blaise Cendrars (Rmn - Grand Palais edition, 2009)
published on the occasion of the exhibition Dis-moi Blaise Léger, Chagall, Picasso et Blaise Cendrars, from 27 June to 12 October 2009, in the three national museums of the 20th century in the Alpes-Maritimes.
This book focuses on the relationships that the writer, poet, novelist, essayist and great traveller, Blaise Cendrars (1887-1961) had with Marc Chagall, Pablo Picasso and Fernand Léger.
150 pages.
Price : 25 €
La Partie de campagne. Fernand Léger and his photographer friends (Rmn - Grand Palais edition, 2008)
published on the occasion of the exhibition La partie de campagne. Fernand Léger et ses amis photographes, from June 20th to September 29th 2008 at the Musée national Fernand Léger, Biot.
Illustrated catalogue, with texts by Maurice Fréchuret (La Partie de campagne), Arnauld Pierre (Ne travaillez jamais, Le triptyque des loisirs de F.Léger), Brigitte Hedel-Salmon (Images de moments disparus) and Kaloust Andalian (Fernand Léger et le cinéma).
80 pages
catalogue out of print
Fernand Léger, Les Constructeurs (Rmn - Grand Palais edition, 2008)
published on the occasion of the Fernand Léger, Les Constructeurs exhibition, from 11 October 2008 to 12 January 2009 at the Musée national Fernand Léger, Biot.
Illustrated catalogue, with texts by Maurice Fréchuret (Les Constructeurs, petite contribution pour l'étude d'une allégorie) and Laurence Bertrand Dorléac (Les Prisons du ciel).
56 pages
catalogue out of print
Album, collection of the Musée national Fernand Léger (Rmn - Grand Palais edition, 2006)
Illustrated catalogue, with texts by Maurice Fréchuret, Jean-Michel Foray, Brigitte Hedel-Samson and Nelly Maillard.
128 pages
catalogue out of print
