Fernand L ger (1881-1955) is one of the few Modernist artists that can be said to have anticipated both American Abstraction and American Pop, and to have made a deliberate relationship with American culture: He visited the U.S. several times, and during the Second World War, from 1940 to 1945, he lived in exile in New York. In America, L ger found much to admire--above all, a dynamic embrace of industry sympathetic to his own quasi-Futurist love of technological energies. An early critic of L ger described him as more of a "Tubist" than a Cubist, noting the cool metal cylinders that fill his early work. It was through such motifs that the artist approached modern life, viewing industry as a force for the good and its translation into art as a Modern vernacular. "Our pictures are our slang," he optimistically declared towards the end of his stay in New York. During that time, L ger had produced some of his most important works, which found a ready audience in the younger American artists surrounding him. Paris-New York covers the artist's entire oeuvre, from the Cubist-influenced early work to the later, cheerful large-format paintings. Special attention is paid to the American dimension of L ger's oeuvre, and the volume traces his impact on American artists--primarily on Roy Lichtenstein and Ellsworth Kelly, but also on other late twentieth-century artists such as Robert Rauschenberg, Al Held, Jasper Johns, James Rosenquist, Frank Stella and Andy Warhol.
- ISBN10 3775721614
- ISBN13 9783775721615
- Publish Date 22 July 2008
- Publish Status Unknown
- Out of Print 17 January 2012
- Publish Country DE
- Imprint Hatje Cantz
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 192
- Language English