''Woman with a Cat'' (, ) refers to two, almost identical 1921 abstract, post-Cubist paintings of different sizes by French painter and sculptor

Fernand Léger Joseph Fernand Henri Léger (; February 4, 1881 – August 17, 1955) was a French painting, painter, sculpture, sculptor, and film director, filmmaker. In his early works he created a personal form of cubism (known as "tubism") which he gradually ...

(1881–1955). The work represents one of a similar series of female figures produced during his

machine aesthetic The machine aesthetic "label" is used in architecture and other arts to describe works that either draw the inspiration from industrialization with its mechanized mass production or use elements resembling structures of complex machines (ships, pla ...

period in the early 1920s. It depicts a simple composition, with a

low key Low key as a term used in describing paintings or photographs is related to but not the same as low-key lighting in cinema or photography. A photographic image, painting or movie can be defined as "low-keyly" if its dominant values are black, dar ...

, nearly monochrome nude woman formed by spheres, cones, and tubes with limited colors of red, yellow, black, and white. The paintings are thought to be a study for his later work, ''Three Women'' (''Le Grand Déjeuner'', 1921–1922). The larger work (130.8 × 90.5 cm) was originally part of the Gottlieb Reber collection in Switzerland until 1958; it was eventually sold to Samuel and Florene Marx and then gifted to the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an Encyclopedic museum, encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the List of largest museums, third-largest museum in the world and the List of larg ...

in 1994. The smaller work (97.5 x 70.5 x 5.5 cm) was held by Paul Rosenberg until it was purchased by the Hamburg Art Collections Foundation for the

Hamburger Kunsthalle The Hamburger Kunsthalle is the art museum of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg, Germany. It is one of the largest art museums in the country. It consists of three connected buildings, dating from 1869 (main building), 1921 (Kuppelsaal) and ...

in 1967.Lippard 1965, p. 39; Rewald 1995, p. 61.

Versions

Woman with a Cat.jpg, Metropolitan Museum of Art Woman with a Cat at Kunsthalle.jpg, Hamburger Kunsthalle

References

Bibliography

*Lippard, Lucy R. (1965). "LEGER. Woman with Cat, 1921."
''The School of Paris: Paintings from the Florene May Schoenborn and Samuel A. Marx Collection''
The Museum of Modern Art. . *Rewald, Sabine (Fall, 1995)
"Recent Acquisitions, A Selection: 1994–1995"
''The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin''. 53 (2). .

External links

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. 1921 paintings Paintings by Fernand Léger Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art Cats in art {{20C-painting-stub