Oil paint on canvas
Tate Collection
Works with images
General Collection
Collection
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/fernand-leger-1488" aria-label="More by Fernand Léger" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Fernand Léger</a>
Keys Composition
Presented by Mrs Fanny Wadsworth 1951
abstraction
body
cloud
domestic
figure
from recognisable sources
geometric
head / face
key
landscape
non-representational
objects
people
weather
<p>During the late 1920s Léger often adopted Surrealist strategies of juxtaposition, as with the grey-and-white keys and the yellow profile here, and irrational space. Yet Léger, like his friend Edward Wadsworth, was primarily concerned with the formal structure of a painting. Consequently the work's surreal elements are subordinated to his interest in combinations of shape and colour.</p><p>Wadsworth bought this picture from Léger after they met in Paris in the late 1920s.</p><p><em>Gallery label, September 2004</em></p>
painting oil paint canvas
2 August 2004 – 6 November 2006
2006-11-06
2 August 2004
2004-08-02
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2004-08-02
British Art and Paris
Collection based display
14 February 2008 – 29 April 2008
2008-04-29
14 February 2008 – 29 April 2008
2008-04-29
2008-02-14
Fundacíon Caixa Galicia (La Coruña, Spain)
2008-02-14
Yves Saint Laurent: Dialogue avec l'art
Loan-out
1 June 2008 – 7 September 2008
2008-09-07
1 June 2008 – 7 September 2008
2008-09-07
2008-06-01
Fondation Beyeler (Riehen/Basel, Switzerland)
http://www.beyeler.com
2008-06-01
Fernand Léger
Loan-out
1 March 2014 – 22 September 2014
2014-09-22
1 March 2014 – 2 June 2014
2014-06-02
2014-03-01
Musée National Fernand Léger (Biot, France)
19 June 2014 – 22 September 2014
2014-09-22
2014-06-19
Musée des Beaux-Arts (Nantes, France)
2014-03-01
Fernand Léger: reconstruire le réel
Loan-out
23 November 2018 – 15 September 2019
2019-09-15
2 May 2019 – 15 September 2019
2019-09-15
2019-05-02
IVAM, Institut Valencià d’Art Modern (Valencia, Spain)
2018-11-23
Fernand Léger
Loan-out
23 November 2018 – 14 September 2019
2019-09-14
23 November 2018 – 17 March 2019
2019-03-17
2018-11-23
Tate Liverpool (Liverpool, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/liverpool/
2 May 2019 – 14 September 2019
2019-09-14
2019-05-02
IVAM, Institut Valencià d’Art Modern (Valencia, Spain)
2018-11-23
Fernand Léger: New Times, New Pleasures
Exhibition
Keys (Composition)
support: 651 × 537 mm
frame: 850 × 740 × 75 mm
Presented by Mrs Fanny Wadsworth 1951
<div class="pbodytext">
<span class="text7">During the late 1920s Léger often adopted      <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/s/surrealism" title="Glossary definition for 'Surrealism'"><span>Surrealist</span></a> strategies of juxtaposition, as with the grey-and-white keys and      the yellow profile here, and irrational space. </span><span class="text14">Yet      Léger, like his friend Edward Wadsworth,</span><span class="text7"> was      primarily concerned with the formal structure of a <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/painting" title="Glossary definition for 'Painting'"><span>painting</span></a>. Consequently      the work's surreal elements are subordinated to his interest in      combinations of shape and colour. </span>
</div>
<div class="para9">
<span class="text7">
<br/> </span>
</div>
<div class="pbodytext">
<span class="text7">Wadsworth bought this picture from Léger after      they met in Paris in the late 1920s. </span>
</div>

Display caption
2004-09-10T00:00:00
display-caption
DISPLAY_CAPTION
<p><b>Fernand Léger</b><span> 1881-1955 </span>
<br/></p>
<p><span><a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/leger-keys-composition-n05990" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N05990</span></a> </span><b>Les Clés (Composition)</b><span> (Keys (Composition)) 1928 </span>
<br/></p>
<p><span>Inscribed 'F. LÉGER. 28' b.r. and 'Nature-Morte | F. LÉGER. 28' on back of canvas</span>
<br/><span>Oil on canvas, 25 5/8 x 21 1/8 (65 x 54)</span>
<br/><span>Presented by Mrs F. Wadsworth in memory of Edward Wadsworth 1951</span>
<br/><i>Prov:</i><span>
With Léonce Rosenberg (Galerie de l'Effort Moderne), Paris (purchased from the artist); Edward Wadsworth, London; Mrs F. Wadsworth, London </span>
<br/></p>
<p><span>The photograph of this work in Léonce Rosenberg's records is entitled on the back 'Keys (Composition)' and is also listed as 'Keys'. </span>
<br/></p>
<p><span>This picture appears to have been the second of three versions of this <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/c/composition" title="Glossary definition for 'Composition'"><span>composition</span></a>. It was evidently preceded by a smaller version in <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/g/gouache" title="Glossary definition for 'Gouache'"><span>gouache</span></a> on millboard, 38 x 26.5cm, formerly in the André Lefèvre collection (sold at the Palais Galliera, Paris, 1 December 1964, lot 58 repr.) and now in the Muzeum Sztuki at Lodz, which shows the profile the same way round, but is narrower in format. The gouache is slightly sketchier and has a number of minor differences, e.g. the line which passes near the region of the eye lacks the upper loop and continues to the edges of the picture at both ends, and there is a broad band of paler grey at the bottom, between the central white stripe and the segment or hair-like <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/f/form" title="Glossary definition for 'Form'"><span>form</span></a> on the right. In the third and probably final version, reproduced in Waldemar George, </span><i>Fernand Léger</i><span> (Paris 1929), p.31 as 'Two Keys', the composition is completely reversed so that the profile faces right instead of left. The composition otherwise follows the Tate Gallery <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/painting" title="Glossary definition for 'Painting'"><span>painting</span></a> fairly closely, except that it lacks the upper loop around the eye, like the gouache, and has a few differences of detail. Its present owner, Jorge S. Helft of Buenos Aires, writes that its dimensions are 92 x 73cm and that its colours are slightly different from the Tate's picture. 'The profile is bright orange, the background greyish blue, the central irregular patch black, and the long irregular patch dark green' (letter of 8 November 1971). The gouache is dated, probably in error, '24' (i.e. 1924), but the large version is dated like this 1928. </span>
<br/></p>
<p><b>Published in:</b>
<br/><span>Ronald Alley, </span><i>Catalogue of the Tate Gallery's Collection of Modern Art other than Works by British Artists</i><span>, Tate Gallery and Sotheby Parke-Bernet, London 1981, p.419, reproduced p.419 </span>
<br/></p>

Catalogue entry
2004-09-21T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
abstraction body cloud domestic figure from recognisable sources geometric head / face key landscape non-representational objects people weather