The acrobat and his partner 1948

Fernand Léger created ‘The Acrobat and His Partner’ during the Second World War. At this time, Léger lived in the United States, in exile from Nazi-occupied France. Here, Léger uses a modernist style to picture popular entertainment. In the early 1940s, the circus was a popular theme for the artist, who was drawn to its spectacle and its accessible appeal to a broad audience. In this image, the social hierarchies are dissolved into the abstracted forms. Are we looking at working-class entertainers, or modern-day gods? Are they trapped in a cycle, or are they ascending to a new level of being? Léger was active in the French communist party, and although these figures don’t represent a political position as such, we can see them as part of the artist's lifelong concern with representing ordinary people. By looking at the context in which Léger lived and worked, we can better understand the cultural and historical associations that give the painting its meaning. The role of the historian is to interpret the image in relation to its social and institutional context, researching the artist's life, his political affiliations, and the cultural debates of his time.