New York good-bye 1946

Fernand Léger made this painting ‘New York good-bye’ with oils and a whole load of feelings, maybe after a trip to the Big Apple. I can imagine Léger standing at his easel, thinking about all those skyscrapers and that crazy energy. You see how the colors are really bold, and how these objects are sort of floating and bumping into each other? Red, white, blue, yellow, and black: so decisive! It’s like he’s saying goodbye to one thing but also hello to something new. The texture feels smooth. Everything is so flat; there isn’t much depth. It makes you feel like you’re looking at a collage of shapes rather than a real space. This painting is a bit like Picasso, but also like Stuart Davis, who also tried to capture the frenetic energy of the modern world. Léger felt the push and pull of abstraction and representation – the energy of modern life! That feeling of being caught between places.