Le Petit Déjeuner
On View In:
Gallery 377
Artist:   Fernand Léger  
Title:   Le Petit Déjeuner  
Date:   1919  
Medium:   Oil on canvas  
Dimensions:   27 3/16 x 36 1/2 in. (69.1 x 92.7 cm)  
Credit Line:   Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Samuel H. Maslon  
Location:   Gallery 377  

Around 1920, Léger turned away from the dynamic mechanical cubism of his earlier paintings to a more ordered, figural style. Looking to art traditions of the past, he gave such time-honored themes as the Three Graces and scenes of odalisques a modern interpretation. In Le Petit Déjeuner (Breakfast) three female nudes are seated by a small table in a domestic interior complete with a dog. Monumental and impersonal, the figures interlock in an anatomical puzzle of interchangeable parts. The emphasis is on pictorial effect and compositional innovation, with strong conflicting perspectives in careful balance. Le Petit Déjeuner is one of two oil studies for the famous Le Grand Déjeuner in the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Artist/Creator(s)     
Name:   Léger, Fernand  
Nationality:   French  
Life Dates:   French, 1881-1955  
 

Object Description  
  
Inscriptions:   LR: [19 F. Leger]  
Classification:   Paintings  
Creation Place:   Europe, France, , ,  
Accession #:   76.5  
Owner:   The Minneapolis Institute of Arts